What was the Iran deal that Trump ripped up?
The Global Story
BBC
3.8 • 667 Ratings
🗓️ 29 April 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When President Trump talks about his attempts to reach an agreement with Iran, he often mentions a previous deal: the 2015 JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), or Iran nuclear deal.
Trump pulled America out of the Obama-era accord during his first term and has called it, "the worst deal in history". His own deal, he says, "will be FAR BETTER".
Asma speaks to Ambassador Wendy Sherman, the lead US negotiator on the JCPOA, to get the inside story on how the deal was done, and ask what it might take for Trump to get a deal now.
Producers: Viv Jones and Xandra Ellin
Sound engineer: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: Wendy Sherman. Credit: Michael Reynolds/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.5 | What Obama did with that Iran nuclear deal, that was the worst deal ever made, that gave them a path to a nuclear weapon, a short-term path to a nuclear weapon. |
| 0:18.5 | That's President Trump in an interview on the Fox Business Network, |
| 0:22.1 | talking about the joint comprehensive plan of action, more commonly known as the JCPOA. |
| 0:27.1 | It was the big nuclear deal under President Obama in 2015. |
| 0:31.0 | It's a deal that Trump ripped up in his first term in 2018, and it's a deal that he cannot |
| 0:36.7 | stop talking about. I terminated it. It was's a deal that he cannot stop talking about. |
| 0:39.3 | I terminated that it was the greatest thing I did. They would have had a nuclear weapon four |
| 0:43.3 | years ago. And yet, it's also a deal that seems to haunt him as he tries now to land his own, |
| 0:52.8 | as he puts it, far better deal. |
| 0:55.9 | But getting a better agreement could be a daunting task. |
| 1:00.1 | From the BBC, I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. |
| 1:03.3 | And today on the global story, we hear about the JCPOA from its lead U.S. negotiator, |
| 1:09.3 | Ambassador Wendy Sherman. |
| 1:11.1 | And we talk about what Trump needs to know about the art of the Iran deal. |
| 1:20.9 | Ambassador Sherman, welcome to the global story. Thanks for joining us. |
| 1:24.0 | Glad to be with you, Asma. Thank you for having me. |
| 1:26.8 | I began my conversation with Wendy Sherman |
| 1:28.7 | by asking her how these talks with Iran actually started. The final deal was worked on and signed by a |
| 1:35.0 | number of countries, including China, Russia, and the European Union. And frankly, it's easy now |
| 1:41.7 | to forget how extraordinary it was for the U.S. and Iran |
| 1:45.1 | to make a deal like this, because, as you all might know, the U.S. and Iran have not had a formal |
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