Trump criticizes Obama’s Iran nuclear deal again; experts say it effectively limited Iran’s nuclear program

BlockBeats News, June 6 — In a recent interview, Trump once again attacked the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran’s nuclear issue (JCPOA), saying the agreement is “almost equivalent to giving Iran nuclear weapons,” and stating that any new deal with Iran in the future will be “far superior to the Obama-era agreement.”

However, multiple U.S. nonproliferation experts noted that while the JCPOA is not perfect, it successfully limited Iran’s uranium enrichment activities and established what is, to date, the strictest international nuclear verification mechanism. Ernest Moniz, a former U.S. Secretary of Energy, said the agreement’s most important achievement lies in significantly enhancing transparency, enabling the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to conduct unprecedented oversight of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Reports indicate that after the Trump administration withdrew from the agreement in 2018, Iran gradually stepped beyond the relevant restrictions, substantially increased its stockpile of enriched uranium, and reduced some verification measures. Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is now far beyond the levels stipulated in the agreement, and some uranium enrichment abundances have reached 60%.

Analysts believe that after the escalation of conflict between the U.S. and Iran and attacks on nuclear facilities, the difficulty of reaching a new agreement in 2026 is clearly higher than it was ten years ago. An expert from the Arms Control Association said that the new agreement will not only need to address Iran’s advances in nuclear technology, but also resolve uncertainties brought about by U.S. and Israeli military actions and verification disruptions.

Moniz, a former U.S. Secretary of Energy, said the core concept of the JCPOA is “don’t trust, verify,” while the Trump administration chose a different strategic path, and its effectiveness has not yet been proven to be better than the previous agreement.