Trump had faced a deadline of Saturday 12 May to recertify the deal. Trump has signaled he will pull out of the agreement by the deadline unless it is revised, but he faces intense pressure from European allies not to do so.
Earlier on Monday the British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, used an appearance on Fox & Friends to appeal to Trump not to withdraw from the pact.
“The president is right to see flaws in [the deal] and he set a very reasonable challenge to the world,” said Johnson, arguing that the US should work with France, Germany, the UK and others to improve the deal, which was signed by the Obama administration in 2015.
“He said: ‘Look, Iran is behaving badly, has a tendency to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles. We’ve got to stop that. We’ve got to push back on what Iran is doing in the region. We’ve got to be tougher.’”
The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, suggested Iran could remain in the pact if the US dropped out. Speaking live on state TV, Rouhani said “getting rid of America’s mischievous presence will be fine for Iran” if other signatories continued to be committed.
Robert Malley, the former lead White House negotiator on the Iran agreement under former President Barack Obama, says he expects Trump to withdraw from the deal.
“It seems based on everything I am hearing from the Europeans and from people here, that president Trump wants to walk out of the deal, not because he’s not satisfied with its substance, but because it’s an Obama legacy,” said Malley.
Earlier on Monday, Trump criticized John Kerry after reports that the former secretary of state has been promoting the Iran nuclear deal.
Trump said on Twitter: “The United States does not need John Kerry’s possibly illegal Shadow Diplomacy on the very badly negotiated Iran Deal. He was the one that created this MESS in the first place!”
Kerry, who was also the lead negotiators for the Obama administration on the Paris climate accord, has been promoting both agreements since he left office.
The Boston Globe reported Friday that Kerry, the lead negotiator on the deal for the Obama administration, had been privately meeting foreign officials to strategize on how to keep the US in the deal. Trump has been highly critical of the pact and has threatened to exit.
Kerry has met Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and at least one of their meetings was at a public event in Oslo in June of 2017, where they sat on the same panel with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and extolled the virtues of the nuclear deal.
Kerry, a keen environmentalist who regularly derided climate change skeptics and championed ocean health as secretary of state, has also continued to speak out on those issues since becoming a private citizen.
Last week at an event in Dallas, Trump mocked Kerry over a bicycle accident he had three years ago.
