President Trump to announce decision on Iran nuclear deal on Tuesday

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he will announce his decision on whether to keep the U.S. in the Iran nuclear deal on Tuesday.

President Trump is facing a self-imposed May 12 deadline over whether to uphold the 2015 nuclear deal, which he long has criticized. President Trump has signaled he will pull out of the agreement by the deadline unless it is revised, but he faces intense pressure from European allies not to do so.

"I will be announcing my decision on the Iran Deal tomorrow from the White House at 2 p.m.," President Trump tweeted Monday.

The president has been the subject of an intense lobbying effort by American allies to maintain the agreement, with British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson making a last-ditch appeal to the administration in a visit to Washington this week. European leaders say that they are open to negotiating a side agreement with Iran but that the existing framework must remain untouched for that to happen.

Earlier Monday, President Trump criticized John Kerry after reports that the former secretary of state has been promoting the Iran nuclear deal.

President Trump said on Twitter: "The United States does not need John Kerry's possibly illegal Shadow Diplomacy on the very badly negotiated Iran Deal. He was the one that created this MESS in the first place!"

Kerry, who was also the lead negotiators for the Obama administration on the Paris climate accord, has been promoting both agreements since he left office.

The Boston Globe reported Friday that Kerry, the lead negotiator on the deal for the Obama administration, had been privately meeting with foreign officials to strategize on how to keep the U.S. in the deal. President Trump has been highly critical of the pact and has threatened to exit on May 12.

Kerry has met with Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and at least one of their meetings was at a public event in Oslo, Norway in June of 2017, where they sat on the same panel with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and extolled the virtues of the nuclear deal.

Kerry, a keen environmentalist who regularly derided climate change skeptics and championed ocean health while secretary of state, has also continued to speak out on those issues since becoming a private citizen.

Last week at an event in Dallas, President rump mocked Kerry over a bicycle accident he had three years ago.