Trump Keeps Iran Deal, Refuses to Certify Compliance to Congress

President Donald Trump will not re-certify to Congress Iranian compliance with the landmark nuclear deal signed in 2015 under President Barack Obama, but will keep the agreement itself in place. Congress will be urged to pass new “trigger points” to hold the Iranians to account and the Treasury Department will be directed to place additional sanctions on the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a wing of the Iranian military accused of terrorist acts in support of the Iranian regime throughout the region. “The President has come to the conclusion that he cannot certify … that the sanctions relief we provided [Iran] is proportionate to the benefit we are seeing,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on a Thursday evening press conference call where he and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster laid out the broad strokes of what a White House fact sheet referred to as “President Donald J. Trump‘s New Strategy on Iran.” The plan, according to McMaster, was the product of “months of an inter-agency process.” The administration will not certify to Congress Iran’s compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal, or that the sanctions relief given under the deal