French, German Leaders Urge Trump Not To Scrap Nuclear Deal

In the clearest example to date that U.S. President Donald Trump and his European allies are not on the same page when it comes to the Iran nuclear deal, French President Emmanuel Macron publicly urged his American counterpart to stick with the 2015 accord. Speaking to Fox News ahead of an official three-day visit to the U.S. beginning Monday, the French leader said that there are no better options to the existing pact and that Paris has no “plan B” if the White House decides to re-impose sanctions on Tehran by a May 12 deadline. His comments came on the same day that German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Israel’s Channel 10 that an imperfect deal is better than none at all and that Berlin will “watch very closely” to ensure it is being fulfilled. The seemingly coordinated comments suggest that European powers are assuming a united front against President Trump’s ongoing attempts to persuade them to negotiate a side-agreement that addresses the original deal’s “sunset clauses,” which remove restrictions on Iran’s ability to enrich uranium in just over a decade’s time; curbs Tehran’s ballistic missile program, which Washington argues contravenes United Nations Security Council resolutions; and penalizes the Islamic Republic for its “nefarious” regional activities. Iran has warned that it will greatly enhance the rate at which it enriches uranium, a precursor to an atomic bomb, if Washington deviates from the terms of the accord.