President-elect Trump will have the power to break the Iran nuclear agreement, the State Department acknowledged, before hastening to argue against such a move.
“It’s not a formal treaty, and, of course, no one else can prevent any party to this agreement from walking away,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters Tuesday. “The counterargument to that is, why would anyone walk away? Because it’s effective.”
Trump’s plans for the Iran deal aren’t clear, given his pledge to “police that contract so tough that they don’t have a chance” and that he hasn’t picked his secretary of state nominee. Toner emphasized that the State Department is making the case for the deal to the incoming administration, but rejected a series of statements from Iranian leaders that suggest Trump’s hands are tied or that the Iranians have the ability to walk away.
“[Trump] wants to do many things, but none of his actions would affect us,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said during a speech Tuesday. “He may desire to rip up the deal. Do you suppose we will allow this?”
Iranian leaders also claim that the extension of expiring legislation that levied sanctions on Iran, which President Obama waived through executive authority, would violate the terms of the deal.
“If this extension is implemented and comes into force, it will certainly be a violation of the nuclear deal and they should know that the Islamic Republic of Iran will certainly show reaction,” Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani said last week.
Toner countered that claim as well, saying that the U.S. agreed only to waive the sanctions, not repeal the underlying law. “We obviously reject those views,” he said. “We’ve been very clear that what we call a ‘clean’ extension of the Iran Sanctions Act is entirely consistent with our commitments in the [Iran deal]. And, in any case, Secretary Kerry would retain waiver authority and would continue to waive all of the nuclear-related sanctions, the relevant sanctions authorized by the legislation. And that’s what we committed to do in the [Iran deal] and so we retain that capacity, I guess, is the point.”
