Dem senator: Trump sending mixed signals on Iran deal

Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.) expressed concern on Thursday that President Trump was sending mixed signals to U.S. adversaries and allies on the nation’s future in the multilateral Iran nuclear agreement. 

“What I think the president will be doing tomorrow is to send a message to Congress that he can no longer certify that … the Iran Deal, is in the national security interests of the United States, but what he is not going to do is to urge us to reapply sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program, or to take action directly to blow up the deal or withdraw from the deal himself,” Coons said on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily.”

{mosads}

“He’s signaling his intense dislike for the deal, but taking no concrete steps to undermine it or to leave it,” continued Coons, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

“I’m gravely concerned that this step will be misunderstood by our adversaries and our allies that it will distance us from our European partners in the Iran agreement, and that it will lead to some mischief in Congress as forces begin to pile on,” he said.  

Coons’s comments come with Trump set to announce his decision Friday on the deal, which was brokered under the Obama administration in 2015.

Republicans in Congress will face a difficult choice if Trump, who has twice certified the nuclear deal, follows through on decertifying the accord.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, along with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford and Secretary of Defense James Mattis have said Iran is complying with the guidelines set out in the agreement. 

If decertified, Congress will be left with the option to bring back sanctions on Iran or do nothing, likely allowing the deal to stand.