Former Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal was “not in America’s interests.”
“Today’s announcement weakens our security, breaks America’s word, isolates us from our European allies, puts Israel at greater risk, empowers Iran’s hardliners, and reduces our global leverage to address Tehran’s misbehavior, while damaging the ability of future administrations to make international agreements,” Kerry said in a statement Tuesday. “No rhetoric is required. The facts speak for themselves. Instead of building on an unprecedented nonproliferation verification measures, this decision risks throwing them away and dragging the world back to the brink we faced a few years ago.”
“The extent of the damage will depend on what Europe can do to hold the nuclear agreement together, and it will depend on Iran’s reaction,” Kerry added. “America should never have to outsource those stakes to any other country. This is not in America’s interests. We all should hope the world can preserve the agreement.”
My thoughts on President Trump’s Iran statement: pic.twitter.com/E5A12PKnnx
— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) May 8, 2018
Kerry, who served as the nation’s top diplomat under former President Barack Obama, was a leader in the development of the 2015 Iran deal, which put restraints on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from crippling sanctions.
Trump announced Tuesday afternoon that the U.S. would pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and the “highest level of economic sanction” would be imposed, adding that nations who assist Iran obtain nuclear weapons could also face sanctions from the U.S.
Trump has long railed against the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and informed Congress he would not recertify the agreement six months ago.
On Tuesday, Trump argued that staying in the “horrible, one-sided deal” would have prompted a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
“If I allowed this deal to stand, there would soon be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East; everyone would want their weapons ready by the time Iran had theirs,” Trump said Tuesday. “It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement.”
Leaders of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom have previously signaled they will stay in the deal with Russia and China to try to preserve the arrangement.
