French President Emmanuel Macron suspects he failed to convince President Trump to stay in the Iran nuclear deal, telling reporters after a town hall at a Washington-area university Trump will likely withdraw the U.S. from the agreement due to “domestic reasons.”
“My view — I don’t know what your president will decide — is that he will get rid of this deal on his own, for domestic reasons,” Macron said at George Washington University, according to BuzzFeed.
He said Trump would look to implement “very tough sanctions” against Iran after walking away from the accord on May 12, the deadline he set for European allies to improve the 2015 President Barack Obama-era arrangement.
The Iran nuclear deal, brokered between the U.S., U.K, Russia, France, China, Germany, and Iran, lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for the country accepting limitations on its nuclear program.
But Macron, who is in Washington on a multiday visit to the U.S., said he had better luck emphasizing the importance of not pulling U.S. forces out of Syria too soon.
“If you stop the day after our victory against ISIS, you leave the floor to the Iranians,” he reiterated.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be in Washington on Friday for talks with Trump, with Iran ostensibly being on the agenda.
