Macron may buy time for the Iran deal, but it’ll likely still collapse

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

President Donald Trump speaks as French President Emmanuel Macron looks on during their joint news conference at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 24, 2018.

French President Emmanuel Macron is in Washington this week on a charm offensive with a mission: to convince his counterpart Donald Trump to keep the Iran nuclear deal intact.

But while the two leaders have developed what appears to be an affable friendship, analysts said this is unlikely to save the 2015 agreement, officially known as the JCPOA, which was signed by six world powers and Iran to lift international sanctions on the latter in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program. Instead, despite Macron’s visit, its eventual end still appears more likely than not.

Macron may have indeed “successfully bought time to gin up support for a new accord,” said Henry Rome, Iran researcher, and Cliff Kupchan, chairman, in a note from political risk consultancy Eurasia Group. This would be a notable achievement in itself given Trump’s vocal disdain for the deal.

But this is expected to be only a temporary success. “Macron’s comments do not change our overall call that the Iranian nuclear deal has a 65 percent chance of collapsing during Trump’s first term,” the analysts said.

Trump is required to recertify the agreement every 90 days or leave its fate to Congress. The next deadline is May 12, and European Union (EU) leaders, in particular, are hoping that he will decide to waive sanctions as he did during previous deadlines, although he warned that last January’s waiver was Iran’s “last chance.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s anticipated meeting with North Korean President Kim Jong Un in the next few months also provides a reason to let the May deadline slide — proponents of the deal have stressed that abandoning it would only harm America’s credibility in negotiating agreements with other states. If the deal survives May, its next hurdle would be the next waiver due on July 11.

Trump’s messages have been mixed coming out of the bilateral talks, calling the deal “insane” and “ridiculous” while also saying he would discuss it and that he and Macron could achieve an agreement “fairly quickly.”