By Judd Lofchie –
I am very concerned about president Donald Trump’s pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal. This action, along with pulling us out of the Paris Climate Accord, may have a chilling effect on our foreign policy. It has nothing to do with being anti-Trump or a Democrat or Republican. If a country knows that the next incoming president may not honor the agreement of the previous president, they may only negotiate with us in the context of making agreements until the end of the current president’s term, or a maximum eight years in office.
These agreements take years to negotiate, countless meetings and hours. For any U.S. president to come in and say something like “that was a horrible deal” is not only unnerving to the signatories to the treaty, but illegal.
After law school I spent three years studying international law and obtained a master of law (LLM) advanced law degree in International Legal Studies from American University in Washington, D.C..
The Paris Climate agreement was negotiated by 196 countries in Paris, France, and was adopted in December 2015. In June 2017, Trump announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the agreement. It deals with pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
The Iran nuclear deal, or Iran deal, is an international agreement on the nuclear program of Iran between Iran, the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States, plus Germany) and the European Union.
In November 2013 after decades of negotiation, an interim agreement was signed between Iran and the P5+1 countries. For the next 20 months, Iran and the P5+1 countries engaged in negotiations, and in April 2015 a formal agreement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was entered into that Iran’s current stockpile of low-enriched uranium will be reduced by 98%. To monitor and verify Iran’s compliance with the agreement, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will have regular access to all Iranian nuclear facilities.
High representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, who acted as coordinator for the powers, said it could “open the way to a new chapter in international relations and show that diplomacy, coordination, cooperation can overcome decades of tensions and confrontations” and that it is “a sign of hope for the entire world.”
May 8, 2018, the United States officially withdrew from the agreement after president Donald Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum to order the reinstatement of harsher sanctions. Trump called the Iran deal “horrible”, however he presented no evidence of significant noncompliance, and the IAEA has continued to assess that Iran has been in compliance with JCPOA and that it had “no credible indications of activities in Iran relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device after 2009.
The leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated: “I said from the first day, don’t trust America.”
Unfortunately, Trump just gave him a reason.
Judd Lofchie is an attorney with a private practice and alderman for the city government of Aurora.
