President Donald Trump on Wednesday forcefully rejected comparisons between the announced Iran agreement and former President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal, arguing the Obama-era pact could have led to Israel and much of the Middle East being “terminated” if he had not ended it.
“The JCPOA was a short-term lease. It expired long ago,” Trump told reporters during a press conference on the sidelines of the G7 summit. “Had I let it run, it expired. You wouldn’t have been around. A lot of people wouldn’t have been around, but Israel would have been terminated. I think the whole Middle East would have been terminated.”
Trump added that he finished the job of terminating the Obama nuclear deal after failed attempts from Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.
“Bibi actually went to Congress and pleaded with them, and he got nowhere. And they had this horrible deal that was horrible for Israel, horrible for Israel. And that’s where it stood. And then I came along and I terminated that deal that had very little time left,” said Trump.
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Trump added that Netanyahu “begged Barack Hussein Obama, the president, not to do the JCPOA. He said it could be the end of Israel, and it would have been if I didn’t come along. And Obama didn’t listen to him.”
The president said the agreement is fundamentally different from the JCPOA, arguing it is structured to permanently block Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon rather than temporarily limit its nuclear activities before key restrictions sunset. Trump’s remarks came prior to the release of the newly announced memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran.
“I made it very tough for [Iran] when I terminated the Barack Hussein Obama catastrophe JCPOA, one of the worst deals,” Trump said. “This deal was really dangerous. What he did, he gave them everything, including a lot of money, which we don’t give them.
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The MOU has drawn comparisons to the JCPOA, as both agreements offer Iran the prospect of sanctions relief and increased foreign investment in exchange for complying with their respective commitments.
Obama argued this week that any new agreement with Iran is unlikely to look dramatically different from the 2015 JCPOA.
The benefits will depend on whether Iran can prove it has abandoned its nuclear ambitions and support for terrorist organizations during a 60-day negotiating period.
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