Trust
Trump? Iran’s Doubts Shadow Peace Talks.
Iranian
leaders fear being burned again by President Trump, who tore up a nuclear
agreement reached during the Obama administration after lengthy negotiations.
Michael
Crowley
By
Michael Crowley
Reporting
from Washington
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/us/politics/trust-trump-iran.html
April 21,
2026
President
Trump and Iran’s leaders have wide differences on many issues, from nuclear
technology to the Strait of Hormuz. But their main obstacle to striking a
lasting peace agreement may be a matter of trust.
Always
wary of the United States, Iranian officials consider Mr. Trump particularly
treacherous. They remember the way, during his first term as president, Mr.
Trump simply abandoned a nuclear deal Iran had struck with the Obama
administration and other world powers after nearly two years of negotiations.
Mr. Trump did not claim that Iran was violating that deal; he simply didn’t
like it.
When the
Biden administration tried to coax Iran into a similar agreement a few years
later, Iran’s leadership demanded a guarantee that a future Trump
administration would not simply tear it up again, according to former U.S.
officials. They had no way of providing one.
And twice
over the past year, Mr. Trump has entered into diplomatic talks with Iran only
to launch airstrikes while negotiations were still in their early stages. In
late February, Mr. Trump sent envoys to meet with Iranian officials in Geneva
just one day before Iran’s supreme leader was killed in an airstrike that began
weeks of U.S. and Israeli bombing. By the time of that meeting, Mr. Trump had
already committed to war, according to U.S. officials.
After a
first round of talks earlier this month ended in rancor, Iranian officials said
a main reason was a U.S. failure to gain their trust. On Tuesday, Vice
President JD Vance delayed his departure to Pakistan for a potential second
round of talks, as Iranian officials again raised the point.
On
Monday, Iranian state media reported that the country’s president, Masoud
Pezeshkian, had warned in a Sunday phone call with Pakistan’s prime minister
that “the U.S. seeks to repeat previous patterns and betray diplomacy,”
according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.
Fearful
of being burned again, Iran is insisting on incremental steps and retaining
leverage — such as at least partial control of its uranium stockpile for as
long as possible. But experts said Iran faced a disadvantage because any
plausible deal would require it to take steps that would ultimately be
irreversible, such as eventually surrendering its uranium supply.
The
distrust is a busy two-way street: The United States says that Iran has
routinely lied for years by claiming its nuclear program was for peaceful
purposes only, and points to uncovered evidence of Tehran’s past military
nuclear research. Iran has also flouted its international commitments by
building secret underground nuclear facilities.
Mr. Trump
has called Iran’s leaders “crazy,” “insane” and “lunatics.”
“Iran has
spent decades deceiving the world about its nuclear program, hiding facilities,
concealing materials and activities, and feeding the International Atomic
Energy Agency false or incomplete information,” said Michael Doran, a former
senior national security official in the George W. Bush administration. “That
record leaves no basis for confidence in Iran’s assurances about its
intentions.”
During
nuclear arms talks with the Soviet Union, President Ronald Reagan popularized
the phrase “trust, but verify.” It is unclear whether Iran and the Trump
administration can even meet that standard.
“The level
of trust between the United States and Iran has always been very low, but now
it is nonexistent,” said Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace.
“The
Islamic Republic believes the United States could attack at any moment,
including during negotiations, as Trump has done twice before,” he added.
“Washington will never believe the Islamic Republic has renounced its nuclear
weapons ambitions, even if it agrees to a compromise.”
Iran has
an added reason for skepticism in Mr. Trump’s military partnership with Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. Mr. Netanyahu would like to resume the
joint U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign as soon as an April 7 cease-fire agreement
expires. Mr. Trump extended the truce on Tuesday, hours before the deadline.
Iranian
propaganda has depicted Mr. Trump as Mr. Netanyahu’s “puppet,” and Iranian
officials surely fear that the Israeli prime minister, who made a strong
original case for war at the White House, will persuade Mr. Trump to abandon
diplomacy.
Despite
it all, both Mr. Trump and Iran appear willing to give diplomacy a try. They
would hardly be the first enemies to overcome deceit and betrayal and reach a
successful agreement. During his first term, Mr. Trump himself struck a deal
with the Afghan Taliban — Islamist radicals who had fought the United States
for 20 years — to withdraw American troops from the country.
Even if
the two sides can overcome their expectations of treachery, the distrust
complicates negotiations that Mr. Trump says can be concluded quickly. That is
a blithe hope, according to veteran diplomats and Iran experts.
Designing
a deal will require calibrating its step-by-step implementation to minimize the
opportunities for one side to obtain an advantage and walk away.
“That too
is complicated because most of the concessions required of Iran are concrete
and irreversible, such as turning over or downblending its highly enriched
uranium,” said Robert Malley, a lead negotiator with Iran during the Obama and
Biden administrations.
“In
contrast, most of the expected U.S. concessions are notional and reversible,
such as lifting sanctions or providing access to frozen assets,” he added.
As a
result, Mr. Malley said, Iran will insist “on a slow, incremental, step-by-step
approach” to implementing any agreement, as a way to test Mr. Trump’s
compliance.
But Mr.
Trump, hardly known for his patience, may balk at that approach.
Looming
over it all will be Iran’s memory of Mr. Trump’s abrogation of the Obama
nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, under which Iran
agreed to 15 years of limits on its nuclear program in return for sanctions
relief.
The
agreement took some 20 months to negotiate, with Russia, China, Britain,
Germany, France and the European Union joining the United States and Iran in
countless rounds of talks. All agreed that Iran was in compliance with the
agreement — until Mr. Trump arrived at the White House.
Calling
the deal “a disaster,” Mr. Trump withdrew from it in 2018 and hammered Iran
with new sanctions. In response, Tehran blew through the caps it had agreed to
place on its nuclear program, enriching enough uranium to near-military grade
levels to come within weeks of bomb-making capability. (Experts say it could
still take Iran many months to build a nuclear bomb once it has refined enough
uranium for the task.)
Mr. Trump
cited that nuclear progress as grounds for striking its nuclear facilities last
June. The strikes, known as Operation Midnight Hammer, came as the U.S. and
Iran were negotiating through Omani mediators.
When Mr.
Malley led indirect U.S. talks with Iran during the Biden administration,
seeking to revive the Obama nuclear agreement, Iranian officials insisted on
guarantees that the United States could not once again unilaterally withdraw
from the deal. Mr. Malley insisted just as firmly that such a guarantee was not
possible.
“Given the
depth of mistrust, as well as the sensitivity of the issues being negotiated,
it’s very unlikely a deal of this magnitude can be negotiated over a few
weeks,” Mr. Sadjadpour said. “More commonly it has taken many months, if not
years.”
Michael
Crowley covers the State Department and U.S. foreign policy for The Times. He
has reported from nearly three dozen countries and often travels with the
secretary of state.
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