Inside the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal that Trump withdrew from

President Donald Trump argued Friday that a deal ending the war with Iran is not going ahead, once again trashing the previous nuclear deal brokered by his predecessor and longtime political foe Barack Obama.

“They dealt with very poor and ineffective leadership on the part of the United States” and “others that allowed them to get away with murder,” Trump said of Iran in an interview with NBC News.

He was asked why Iran was still negotiating if it was desperate to reach a deal, as Trump insists.

“It would take some time… This should have been done a long time ago,” Trump said when pressed.

He then brought up the Obama-era nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), from which Trump withdrew the US in 2018, and did not renegotiate.

“This deal was the equivalent of giving them nuclear weapons. This was a terrible deal made by Barack Obama and actually written by him,” Trump told NBC. “It was a terrible deal.”

This was not the first time Trump condemned the JCPOA, which was reached in 2015 by an international coalition that included the United States.

“The deal we made with Iran will be much better,” Trump said. Real Social post On April 20, he added: a few minutes later that such an agreement would be “relatively quick!”

It has become a frequent refrain This reaction came from Trump as the Iran war, which he initially said would last four to six weeks, enters its fourth month without a short-term peace agreement, let alone a solution to the Iranian nuclear threat.

Trump frequently claims that if the United States had not withdrawn from the JCPOA, Iran would have already obtained and used nuclear weapons.

However many national security experts They say the deal, although imperfect, achieves its main goal of halting Iran’s progress toward nuclear proliferation and allowing effective monitoring of Tehran’s nuclear activities.

And since Trump’s withdrawal, Iran has violated the JCPOA’s nuclear limitations, including accelerating its uranium enrichment and rolling back some transparency measures introduced by the deal.

“It would take years to do those things,” Trump said in the NBC interview when asked why he didn’t renegotiate a better nuclear deal in his first term.

Trump also claimed to NBC that the JCPOA would have “ended a long time ago.” But many of its key provisions were permanent, while others were planned to last 15 or 20 years or longer.

“It’s very difficult to say how we’re in a better position right now,” Ernest Moniz, who was U.S. Secretary of Energy at the time of the 2015 signing, told CNBC.

“Perhaps the rabbit will be pulled out of the hat. We all hope so. But conditions certainly look much less favorable at the moment than they did ten years ago,” he said.

Here’s what you need to know about the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal:

“When the Bush administration took office, there were no centrifuges in Iran” Obama said In 2015, however, “by the time I took office, Iran had installed several thousand centrifuges and showed no inclination to slow down, let alone stop, its program.”

In 2013, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, China, Russia, and Germany (known as the P5+1) began talks with Iran, resulting in the “Joint Plan of Action,” an interim agreement that came into force in January 2014. The JCPOA followed and was concluded in July 2015.

almost 160 page agreement It contained many provisions. Overall, it placed limits on Iran’s nuclear program and imposed new verification and inspection requirements in exchange for the conditional lifting of nuclear-related sanctions.

Parts of the agreement have been implemented permanently, including some important transparency rules. Other provisions were set to expire at the end of their term; some after just 10 years.

Under the deal, Iran was limited to only about 660 kilograms of uranium enriched to only 3.67% for 15 years. This level of enrichment is generally used for commercial nuclear power reactors.

according to IAEA’s latest assessment In February, Iran had a total enriched uranium stockpile of approximately 21,800 pounds by June 2025. Of this total, more than 970 pounds were enriched to 60%. While uranium is considered “weapons grade” at 90% enrichment, it can be used as a nuclear explosive at 60% enrichment.

The agreement also included measures to reduce Iran’s installed centrifuges, prevent the production of weapons-grade plutonium, and halt the development of nuclear infrastructure.

“The most important feature of the JCPOA was its extraordinary verification and transparency measures,” Moniz said. he said.

“Unlike other countries in the world, [IAEA] Investigators will need to be given access to a suspected classified site. 24 days” he explained. “This is a very, very important new restriction.”

Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, called the JCPOA’s monitoring regime “unique and critical” to its success.

“The JCPOA contained the most intrusive monitoring and oversight regime ever negotiated,” Davenport said in an email to CNBC. “The deal wasn’t perfect, but it was an effective and verifiable deal. It got the job done.”

Then-Sen said the deal would “remove remaining pressure to meet the requirements of the agreement and use that money to fuel its aggressive expansion in the Middle East.” Marco Rubio wrote in 2015: column.

In his speech regarding the withdrawal of the JCPOA in 2018, Trump said, “If I let this agreement stand, there would soon be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Everyone would want their own weapons to be ready until Iran gets its weapons.”

But some estimates put Iran’s “escape time” – the time it takes to enrich enough material for a bomb – has shrunk significantly In the years following the US withdrawal from the JCPOA.

The JCPOA remained in effect after the US withdrawal. But in Moniz’s case, it’s “history.”

“This is not being followed, it is not being followed by Iran, so in my opinion a new agreement needs to be reached,” he said.

Despite periodic reports that the parties are close to a deal and Trump frequently signaling that a deal is imminent, this new agreement has yet to emerge.

Meanwhile, some reports indicate that Trump’s determination to reach a stronger deal than Obama’s has led to disagreements in the negotiations, including whether Iran will reach any agreement at all. financial compensation.

“The usefulness of comparing any nuclear agreement reached today with the JCPOA is limited,” Davenport told CNBC.

He said a new deal “must combat greater uncertainty regarding Iran’s nuclear materials and technologies due to inspections and uncertainties created by U.S. and Israeli bombings.” “An effective agreement in 2026 will also need to combat the technological advances made by Iran after the collapse of the JCPOA and the increasing political motivations for arms proliferation in Iran.”

Moniz noted that the Iranians “have always said they are determined not to have nuclear weapons… but of course our stance is ‘do not trust and do not verify.'”

“That was actually the purpose of the JCPOA,” he said. “President Trump has chosen the exact opposite strategic priorities, and so far they are not working out very well.”