US Ambassador to the United Nations on Sunday said the Trump administration hopes to remain in the nuclear deal with Iran but strengthen it so the “American people feel safer.”
“I think right now you are going to see us stay in the deal,” Haley said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”
“What we hope is that we can improve the situation,” she continued. “And that’s the goal. … It’s not that we’re getting out of the deal. We’re just trying to make the situation better so that the American people feel safer.”
Haley was one of the voices inside the administration pushing Trump not to certify the 2015 deal brokered by former President Obama and other nations – including Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia – so that it could weigh a “proportionate” response to Tehran and to send a clear message to North Korea over its nuclear ambitions.
“What we’re trying to say is, ‘Look, the agreement was an incentive. The agreement was for you to stop doing certain things,'” Haley said. “You haven’t stopped doing certain things. So what do we do to make Iran more accountable so that they do?”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also said the administration will stay put but wants the pact to reflect US goals in the region.
He said Trump wants a “more comprehensive strategy” on Iran that addresses matters beyond Tehran’s nuclear-weapon capability, including the regime’s support for terror groups and sowing instability in Syria and Yemen.
“Let’s see if we cannot address the flaws in the agreement by staying within the agreement, working with the other signatories, working with our European friends and allies,” he said.
And National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Trump isn’t ready to walk away, but Iran is not a “trustworthy regime.”
Trump, in announcing his decision on Friday not to certify the agreement, blasted Tehran for supporting terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas and for destabilizing Syria and Yemen.
While Trump did not scrap the deal, he kicked it over to Congress, giving lawmakers six months to impose new sanctions that were removed under the pact. Congress could also introduce new legislation, amend the current deal or do nothing.
Trump will be working “very closely with Congress,” she said, “to try and come up with something that is more proportionate.”
“The whole reason we’re looking at this Iran agreement is because of North Korea,” she said. “When you look at the fact that 25 years of botched agreements and negotiations and accountability not kept by North Korea, that’s the whole situation that got us to where we’re having to watch day by day to see if they do an I.C.B.M. test going forward. What we’re saying now with Iran is don’t let it become the next North Korea.”
She also downplayed any rift in her relationship with Tillerson, calling reports that tensions between the two top US diplomats are nearing “World War III” levels “drama” and “palace intrigue.”
“That is just so much drama,” she said. “I mean, it’s really, it’s all this palace intrigue.”
She said that every member of the National Security Council shares common goals with Trump and is working to provide him with foreign policy options.
“I am glad to be living in New York just for that reason, is that I don’t want to be near the drama and I don’t want to be near the gossip,” she said.