Senate

Kaine says Trump leaving Iran nuclear deal ‘one of the worst’ foreign policy decisions by American president

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by Max Rego - 04/12/26 10:44 AM ET

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by Max Rego - 04/12/26 10:44 AM ET

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Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) slammed President Trump for withdrawing the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran during his first term.

“This is not going to be an easy negotiation because the last negotiation that led to a control of Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. made the decision to tear it up and walk away from the deal,” Kaine told host Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week,” referring to negotiations between the Trump administration and Iranian officials in Islamabad, Pakistan.

“I think that decision by President Trump to tear up a diplomatic deal will go down in history as one of the worst decisions in the foreign policy space ever made by an American president,” he continued. “If you make diplomacy impossible, you tend to make war inevitable.”

In 2018, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the JCPOA, which was negotiated under former President Obama. The deal, reached in 2015 between Iran and multiple world powers, required the Islamic Republic to dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

The Obama administration said in January 2016, citing the International Atomic Energy Agency, that the Iranian government shipped 25,000 pounds of enriched uranium out of the country since the prior October.

Tehran also dismantled and removed two-thirds of its centrifuges, removed the calandria from its heavy water reactor and filled it with concrete and provided “unprecedented access” to its nuclear facilities and supply chain, the Obama administration added.

The prior administration noted at the time that non-nuclear sanctions, including those on missile technologies and conventional weapons and the designation of Iran as a state sponsor of terror, remained in place.

Earlier this weekend, Vice President Vance, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, led negotiations with Iranian officials in Pakistan, amid a ceasefire between the two sides.

After talks concluded, Vance told reporters that the discussions were “substantive,” but the two sides were unable to reach a peace agreement.

“The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that’s bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the United States of America,” the vice president said. “So, we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement.”

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, also said Sunday that U.S. officials “failed to gain the trust” of their Iranian counterparts during those negotiations.

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