U.S. Details Agreement With Iran as Trump Departs G7 Summit
President Trump on Wednesday issued a fiery defense of his deal with Iran, lashing out at critics concerned that the agreement will mirror one reached 11 years ago by a predecessor he disdains.
Mr. Trump insisted on Wednesday that the United States was not, in effect, paying Iran to agree to the recently negotiated peace agreement, and, in an expletive-laden rant, he angrily proclaimed that his deal surpassed the one former President Barack Obama signed with Tehran in 2015.
“And you know what the Iranians did? They laughed at Obama, and they said, ‘He’s a stupid son of a bitch,’” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump made his comments as he gathered with other leaders at the Group of 7 Summit in France. They came just hours before a senior administration official disclosed what the official said were the terms of the deal.
Mr. Trump’s attack on Mr. Obama on the world stage underscored how much the former president’s deal looms over current negotiations with Iran, which Mr. Trump has trumpeted as a legacy-defining achievement. The president has regularly sought to cast himself as a better negotiator than Mr. Obama, and he has criticized the deal Mr. Obama signed in 2015 as financially rewarding Tehran without an ironclad guarantee that it would never obtain a nuclear weapon.
His personal attack on the former president also added to the stream of provocative, rambling and sometimes contradictory messaging Mr. Trump has delivered in the weeks he has pursued the deal with Iran, and in the days since the two sides agreed to it on Sunday. Until Wednesday, the terms had not been released, stirring speculation and criticism.
Even after trumpeting the deal, he added to the confusion.
“It’s a very strong deal,” he said. “Nobody knows what it is, but it’s very strong.”
The formal signing of the agreement is scheduled for Friday. The text released Wednesday called for the critical Strait of Hormuz to reopen immediately and states that there will be no charge for transit, but “for 60 days only.”
Among the harshest critics of the deal was Mr. Trump’s former Vice President, Mike Pence. Asked if, based on what he knew, he thought the Trump administration was making a mistake, Mr. Pence said he thought it was “much bigger than a mistake.”
“In this moment — the posture that we’re getting from the Iranians — but my concern is what appears to be leaking out,” he said in an interview with CNN. “These immediate concessions, particularly sanctions waivers right out of the gate, that would essentially be a lifeline to the Iranian regime, I think, is ill-advised. We ought to keep the pressure on, keep the blockade on, and if need be, let our armed forces get back to work.”
Mr. Trump on Wednesday equivocated on whether the deal included any immediate sanctions relief for Iran. At first, he said “no,” and then, when asked again, he said, “They have to behave well.”
He denied reports that the deal included any U.S. investment in a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran, one of the points that has drawn the most attention.
The text of the agreement says the United States “undertakes with regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least U.S.D. 300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” That language allows Mr. Trump to thread the needle on the fund, asserting that there will be no American investment, but that Gulf states might contribute.
At a news conference before he departed the summit, Mr. Trump continued to weave when pressed on the fund. He said that the U.S. had damaged the country so badly during the war that “Somebody’s going to have to help them out.”
“Unlike Barack Hussein Obama, who sent Iran pallets of cash, any relief they receive under this deal, they’ll have to get based on merit — and it won’t be from us,” he said. “We don’t have to give them anything. But some people may want to invest. Like, what are you going to do to say ‘you can never ever invest in a country,’ I mean, it’s pretty tough.”
The focus on Mr. Obama on Wednesday underscored Mr. Trump’s obsession with persuading people he is a superior leader to the former president. Over the course of the 3-day summit, Mr. Trump — who has had a fixation with the nation’s first Black president for more than a decade, starting with pushing a racist lie that he was not American — mentioned Mr. Obama by name nearly two dozen times.
Few issues animate Mr. Trump and other critics of the Obama-era deal as much as the U.S. shipment of $1.7 billion in cash to Tehran a few months after the nuclear deal was agreed upon. That payment was a debt owed to Iran for military equipment the United States never delivered. The $1.7 billion, however, pales in comparison next to the $50 billion or more in Iranian foreign assets unfrozen under the agreement.
Regarding the $300 billion investment fund, one diplomat said that Iran and the United States must conclude a comprehensive deal to end the war to enable the fund’s creation.
Work on the fund was underway. Commitments amounting to half of the $300 billion figure have already been made, including from companies in the United States, the Middle East, Asia, South America, and Africa, the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations. The fund would be a conduit for private investment, not a reparations program, the diplomat said. Reuters first reported the details about the funding pledges.
On Tuesday, Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for the Qatari foreign ministry, suggested Qatar would not take responsibility for the fund alone. “Any effort on this topic needs to be an international effort,” he said, adding that economic development in the Middle East was everyone’s responsibility.
Iran’s economy has long been hobbled by a vast array of sanctions, which have cut it off from much of the world. The $300 billion fund appears to offer Iran a pathway to reintegrate into the world economy.
Mr. Trump appeared eager to take a victory lap when he arrived at the global summit on Monday with a deal in hand, and was met with mostly praise from European allies, even though they had been both skeptical and critical of his approach to the war.
Asked on Wednesday if European leaders are coming around to his worldview, presumably as it relates to Iran, President Trump asserted that: “I think they think I was right.”
European leaders have been discussing how to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and, in particular, have been working on a French- and British-led naval operation.
He added, “They all want to be involved. There’s no reason to have them. It’s pretty much over, but they all want to be involved.”
During his news conference, he remarked that “the past few days have provided a chance to discuss the details of the deal with the closest friends and allies, the heads of countries,” and cited statements from leaders saying “they love this deal.”
But while Mr. Trump forcefully defended his deal, he also suggested that it was not final. He said that if he was unhappy with how the terms were executed, he would resume the war.
“It’s a memorandum of understanding,” he said. “If it doesn’t get done in 60 days, that’s all right, we go back to bombing.”
Mr. Trump also suggested there was the possibility the deal might not hold once the text is finalized.
“I’ve gone into deals that were 100 percent — and they don’t happen,” he said. “I’ve gone into deals that there’s no chance of getting them done — and it happens, and they happen easily,” he said. “You never know with deals, but you’re going to find out pretty soon.”