French President Emmanuel Macron visited the White House Tuesday for a bilateral discussion on several topics and a joint press conference with President Donald Trump; and the subject of former President Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — better known as the Iran Deal — was the topic du jour.

Trump has long criticized the Iran Deal and expressed a willingness not to recertify it, even at times suggesting that the U.S. should pull itself out of a deal he’s described as “insane”, “ridiculous” and a “disaster”.

One stumbling block the U.S. faces in pulling itself out of the deal — one critics say allows Iran a pathway to nuclear weapons — is that the U.S. did not strike the accord with Iran in a vacuum. The deal is, in fact, an agreement between Iran, the P5+1 nations (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States—plus Germany), and the European Union.

In order to leave the deal, Trump’s going to have to make the case to partners and allies.
Today may have been the first step in that direction as Trump seems to have convinced Macron — who traveled to the U.S. with the express intent of salvaging the Iran deal — to consider striking a new deal with regard to the Middle Eastern nation.