The TOI correspondent from Washington: US President Donald Trump jokingly declared “I’m the boss” as he strode into a G7 meeting in France Wednesday amid criticism in Washington that he is being bossed over by Iran in a prospective deal that purportedly lists several immediate US obligations while allowing Tehran to punt the core nuclear issue down the road.Determined to counter the growing backlash at home that the self-proclaimed master negotiator will be signing an MOU that critics say is effectively a “surrender document” that trades American leverage for vague assurances from Tehran, Trump said he is ready to ditch the deal if it does not meet his expectations and resume attacks on Iran.“It’s a memorandum of understanding.
And if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them...
If they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, OK?” Trump said during a meeting with Egyptian president Mohammed El Sisi, amid raging arguments in Washington about whether Tehran had gotten the better of Trump.According to reports from Bloomberg and other outlets, the US-Iran MoU offers what many experts say are “staggering concessions” to Tehran: immediate termination of all US and UN Security Council sanctions; unfreezing of billions of dollars in Iranian assets worldwide; immediate resumption of Iranian oil exports to stabilise global energy markets; and controversially, creation of a $300 billion “rehabilitation and economic development” fund for Iran – backed by US Gulf partners.In return, it only calls for Iran’s stockpile of near- bomb- grade uranium to be “adequately addressed,” leaving the fate of enough highly enriched material largely unresolved.
