President-elect Donald Trump’s Iran policy during his first term was never as bellicose as his rhetoric. His “maximum pressure” campaign was mostly similar to former President Barack Obama’s application of sanctions that brought the Iranians to the negotiating table and resulted in the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal.
Just because Trump called that agreement the “worst deal ever” did not mean that he wanted to pursue regime change in Tehran, however. Rather, he wanted to negotiate a better deal with the Iranians, one that allowed him say his nuclear deal was superior to Obama’s nuclear deal. Trump was otherwise quite dovish on Iran. At moments when it would have been legitimate for Trump to use military force—after the IRGC seized oil tankers, mined the Persian Gulf, shot down an American drone operating in international airspace, and bombed Saudi oil facilities—the president chose (with bipartisan support) not to respond.
There are still comprehensive sanctions on Iran, but the Biden administration has tended to look the other way at Iran’s oil sales. That had everything to do with the political calculations of a president who was stung early on in his administration by high energy prices. The collective pain of Americans at the gas pump contributed to Biden’s persistently low approval rating.
It remains an open question if Trump would risk the same through tougher sanctions enforcement. It depends on how he calculates his parochial interests: Does he want to be the guy who got “the better deal”—consistent with his self-image as master dealmaker—or does he want to ensure that Americans enjoy cheap oil and gas? Does he think he can do both? Only President-elect Trump could know the answers to those questions—and he may not either.
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