US President Donald Trump on October 16 warned that the termination of the Iran nuclear deal is still a clear possibility even though he stopped short of making that move while announcing his new Iran strategy at the end of last week, Ria Novosti reported.

Piling on the rhetoric during a meeting with his cabinet, Trump said he would see what Congress comes up with in terms of fixing the deal—which removes crippling sanctions against Iran's economy in return for an inspection regime designed to bar the country's path to developing a nuclear weapon—but added: “We’ll see what phase two is. It might be a total termination. That’s a very real possibility.”

Trump went on: “I’m tired of being taken advantage of as a nation,” implying that his predecessor Barack Obama could not negotiate in the best interests of the US—even though the nuclear deal is typically described as Obama's best foreign policy achievement, is supported by almost every country in the world except for Israel and Saudi Arabia and has even won grudging acceptance from Trump's Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Pentagon chief Jim Mattis. What's more, the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) has eight times certified Iranian compliance with the deal. Trump refused to renew White House acceptance of Tehran's compliance when announcing his Iran strategy, thus decertifying the deal but, for now, maintaining American participation in it.

In his latest remarks, Trump said Iranians and Iran as a whole were “great negotiators” who “negotiated a great deal for themselves, but a horrible deal for the US.”

The European Union has committed to maintaining the nuclear deal whatever plan Trump eventually pursues, but the worry is that to do so Brussels would have to work out how to deal with fresh American sanctions without putting itself at a great disadvantage.