Macron’s Pitch to Trump on a ‘New’ Iran Deal Surprises EU Allies

French President Emmanuel Macron is pushing the limits of international diplomacy, as his last-ditch appeal to salvage the Iran nuclear deal wrong-footed European allies and was met with intransigence by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Macron, who has sought to cultivate a personal bond with Trump, made his Iran pitch the centerpiece of his visit to the White House. If the U.S. preserved the existing nuclear accord, that could serve as the cornerstone of a new, expanded deal that would address the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program and destabilizing behavior across the Middle East.

That case ran headlong into Trump’s competing instincts on foreign policy and caught fellow European powers off guard. Coordination within the European Union took place before Macron left for Washington, but once there the French president introduced elements that hadn’t been discussed in advance, according to two EU officials. The French will need to brief the rest of the EU on those issues, said the officials, who asked not to be named discussing strategy. 

A lack of European coordination may be a price worth paying if the U.S. president can be persuaded to stick to the Iran accord. Trump prizes his reputation as a deal maker, and is eager to score major foreign policy wins, yet he remains deeply skeptical of preserving the 2015 agreement with Tehran.