Progress slow in Trump’s push to re-write Iran nuclear deal

The Trump administration is pushing Britain, France and Germany to join in a U.S.-led retooling of the 2015 Iranian nuclear accord, but it is not clear if the others will get on board before a May 12 deadline set by President Trump to pull Washington out of the Obama-era deal.

“We have had constructive talks with the Europeans toward a supplemental agreement, but I can’t predict whether we will reach an agreement with them or not,” Brian Hook, the administration’s lead negotiator in the talks said Thursday.

Mr. Hook, the State Department policy planning director, told reporters on a conference call that the administration’s goal is to get Britain, France and Germany to join in new collective sanctions against Iran if the Islamic republic tests long-range missiles or evades inspections of its remaining nuclear facilities.

Should the Europeans not agree to such new collective sanctions, the Trump administration is “engaged in contingency planning,” he said, suggesting Mr. Tump will follow through on threats to reimpose a slate of U.S. sanctions that were in place against Iran prior to the inking of the nuclear deal in 2015.

The 2015 accord was reached between Iran, China, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and the United States and effectively lifted sanctions in exchange for Tehran’s commitment to limit and allow inspections of its nuclear weapons development program that was in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

While the U.S. intelligence community’s worldwide threat assessment published last month said the nuclear deal has effectively “enhanced the transparency of Iran’s nuclear activities,” Mr. Trump vowed on the campaign trail in 2016 to pull Washington out of the deal if he became president.

During the time since, he has lamented that the deal has in it no restrictions on Iranian ballistic missile activities and criticized the deal’s so-called “sunset” clause, which would allow Iran to ramp up its nuclear activities beginning in 2025.

Britain, France and Germany have all expressed frustration at Iranian ballistic missile testing over the past year, but have also resisted Mr. Trump’s call to abandon or rewrite the nuclear accord.

In January, Mr. Trump issued what some have called an ultimatum to the Europeans, saying that if they don’t join Washington in fixing “terrible flaws” in the deal, he’ll move to unilaterally re-impose U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Under the existing terms of the nuclear deal, the deadline for Mr. Trump to approve the renewal of existing U.S. sanctions relief on Iran is May 12.