Iran–United States relations during the first Trump administration (2017–2021) were marked by a sharp policy shift from Obama's engagement-oriented approach. Trump began with a travel ban affecting Iranian citizens, and withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). A broader maximum pressure campaign followed, with over 1,500 sanctions targeting Iran’s financial, oil, and shipping sectors, as well as foreign firms doing business with Iran, severely damaging its economy. The effort aimed to isolate Iran but met with strong resistance—even from U.S. allies—and often left Washington diplomatically isolated.
Iran responded by threatening to resume unrestricted uranium enrichment; rejecting negotiations with the Trump administration, and intensified rhetoric. Tensions escalated in 2019 with U.S. intelligence reports of Iranian threats, attacks on oil tankers, the downing of a U.S. drone by Iran, and suspected Iranian strikes on Saudi oil facilities. President Trump called off retaliatory strikes, opting for cyberattacks and additional sanctions instead.
A major escalation followed a December 2019 rocket attack on the K-1 Air Basein Iraq, which led to American airstrikes on Iranian-backed militias and a retaliatory attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. On 3 January 2020, the U.S. assassinated Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike, prompting Iranian missile attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and heightened fears of war. The crisis deepened with the accidental downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane by Iranian forces and continued through early 2020 with retaliatory strikes and threats.
Later in 2020, Iran blamed U.S. sanctions for limiting its COVID-19 response. They launched a military satellite, and were later accused of interfering in the U.S. presidential election and proxy attacks. Relations ended under Trump with continued hostility and unresolved disputes.
State of Iran-U.S. relations in January 2017
At the outset of the first Trump administration in January 2017, Iran was led by President Hassan Rouhani, a centrist cleric who had previously championed the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) and advocated for improved relations with the West, while ultimate authority rested with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who held decisive power over Iran’s foreign and security policies. Relations between Iran and the United States were marked by cautious diplomacy following the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA), but strained by ongoing U.S. sanctions, ballistic missile disputes, and regional tensions, with no formal diplomatic ties since 1980.
Already during his presidential campaign, Trump maintained that "Iran is now the dominant Islamic power in the Middle East and on the road to nuclear weapons." He opposed the JCPOA, calling it "terrible" and claiming that the Obama administration negotiated the agreement "from desperation." He also described the agreement as a disaster that could lead to a nuclear holocaust. Although at one point he stated he would attempt to enforce the deal rather than abrogate it, he also told AIPAC in March 2016 that his "number-one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran."
Initial steps
One of the Trump administration’s first major actions affecting Iran came on 27 January 2017, when citizens of Iran and several other countries were temporarily banned from entering the United States by the executive order "Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States". It barred Iranian citizens and individuals suspected of Iranian nationality from entering the U.S., including Iranian passport holders, except for transit. All passengers and crew, regardless of nationality, were required to ensure their passports contained no Iranian entry stamps. There are no direct flights between Iran and the USA so all travel must transit through a third country, and no Iranian aircraft may enter USA airspace.
The Trump White House announced that it was putting Iran "on notice" following its ballistic missile tests on January 29, 2017, just days after taking office. Days later, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on 25 Iranian individuals and companies suspected of involvement in Iran's missile program, calling these "initial steps".
The Trump administration was seen as moving to strengthen an informal coalition with Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and other Sunni Gulf states, aimed at countering Iran's regional influence. Between January and late July 2017, Twitter had identified and shut down over 7,000 accounts created by Iranian influence operations.
The Trump administration stated that Trump personally lobbied dozens of European officials against doing business with Iran during the May 2017 Brussels summit; this likely violated the terms of the JCPOA, which prohibits policies "specifically intended to directly and adversely affect the normalization of trade and economic relations with Iran." Both in April and in July 2017, the Trump administration certified in July 2017 that Iran had upheld its end of the agreement.In April 2017, the Trump administration certified that Iran was in compliance with the JCPOA.
In July 2017, the vast majority of congressional Democrats and Republicans voted in favor of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) that grouped together sanctions against Iran, Russia and North Korea. On 2 August 2017, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi stated that, "In our view the nuclear deal has been violated". In September 2017, speaking to the UN General Assembly, the countries′ presidents exchanged offensive remarks and expressed opposing views on the JCPOA.
Withdrawal from nuclear agreement and maximum pressure campaign
In May 2018, Donald Trump decided to pull out of the JCPOA, announcing he would reimpose economic sanctions on Iran effective from 4 November that year. This marked the beginning of the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign, an effort to force Iran to renegotiate the nuclear agreement by imposing intensified sanctions. The administration aimed to expand the deal to include stricter limitations on Iran's nuclear program as well as new restrictions on its ballistic missile development and regional activities.
In response, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said that if needed he would "begin our industrial enrichment without any limitations". On 5 July, Iran threatened to close off the Strait of Hormuz if U.S. decided to re-impose oil sanctions on Iran following US withdrawal from the JCPOA.
In late July 2018, against the backdrop of a harsh exchange of threats between the presidents of the U.S. and Iran, a large tanker flying a Saudi flag and transporting some 2 million barrels of oil to Egypt was struck in the Bab-el-Mandeb strait near the port of Hodeida by the Houthi rebels in Yemen, believed to be armed and financed by Iran. The incident, which made Saudi Arabia halt oil shipments through the strait, was seen by analysts as greatly escalating tensions. It was reported that the Trump administration was conducting a program to foment various opposition groups in Iran.
On 13 August 2018, Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned direct talks with U.S., referring to the failure of the previous ones. "There will be no war, nor will we negotiate with the US" and "Even if we ever—impossible as it is—negotiated with the US, it would never ever be with the current US administration," Khamenei said. He added that the United States never budges on the primary goal they pursue in negotiations, which are normally based on give and take, and "reneges on its own end of the bargain" after the negotiation. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo formed the Iran Action Group as a dedicated group to coordinate and run U.S. policy toward Iran. In November 2018, all the sanctions removed in 2015 were re-imposed on Iran by the Trump administration.
In October 2018 the International Court of Justice provisionally ordered the United States to cancel its sanctions against Iran, relying on the 1955 Treaty of Amity. In response, the United States withdrew from the treaty.
In November 2018, the Trump administration officially reinstated all sanctions against Iran that were previously lifted before the U.S. withdrew from the JCPOA.
Contradicting the administration's previous statements, a January 2019 U.S. intelligence community assessment concluded that Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons.
In May 2019, the International Atomic Energy Agency certified that Iran was abiding by the main terms of the Iran nuclear deal, although questions were raised on how many advanced centrifuges Iran was allowed to have, as that was only loosely defined in the deal.
On 7 March 2019, Acting U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Jonathan Cohen, in a letter to Secretary-General António Guterres, urged the United Nations to put new sanctions on Iran for its new missile activities.
In August 2020, after the United Nations Security Council rejected a U.S.-sponsored proposal to extend an arms embargo against Iran, Trump said that the U.S. would unilaterally "snapback" sanctions against Iran that had been lifted as part of the JCPOA—an argument based on the stance that the U.S. remained a "participant" in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal–despite Trump's withdrawal from it. The U.S. argument was met with skepticism by European allies. The Security Council voted on the Trump administration proposal later in August, with only the Dominican Republic joining the United States to vote in favor.
In total, the "maximum pressure" campaign made extensive use of the global financial system to isolate Iran. The United States imposed over 1,500 sanctions, targeting Iran’s central bank, national oil company, shipping lines, and other key sectors, as well as foreign entities conducting business with Iran. The threat of secondary U.S. Treasury sanctions led many international corporations and financial institutions to disengage, contributing to a sharp decline in Iran’s oil exports.
IRGC and U.S. Armed Forces terrorist designations
Already during the Bush administration, the United States opposed the activities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) based on "the group's growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East." There were plans to designate the group as a terrorist organization in 2007, but this did not materialize as a formal designation. On 8 April 2019, the US Department of State announced its intent to brand the IRGC a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), effective April 15.
The Iranian parliament responded by ratifying a motion designating "all legal and real persons and troops of the United States and its allies operating in the West Asian region" terrorists, calling any aid to them a terrorist act and pressing the government to defuse the threat of IRGC designation through multilateral negotiations with international organizations. The nonbinding resolution cited "the terrorist nature of the United States regime, particularly that part of the American military and security forces and the US Central Command which have been carrying out acts of terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iran in the past quarter-century, and have given overt support to terrorist plans." Soon after, the Supreme National Security Council cited similar concerns in declaring the IRGC designation dangerous and illegal, the United States a "terrorist government" and CENTCOM its primary "terrorist organization".
The US State Department Special Briefing also warned against increasing involvement of the IRGC forces in the Syrian conflict:
We believe this is an alarming trend. It's borne out by the facts and it merits closer inspection as we evaluate the landscape of terrorist activity globally. Add to this, of course, is the deepening commitment both Iran and Hezbollah have made to fight and kill on behalf of the Assad regime in Syria. That involvement, of course, is hardening the conflict and threatening to spread the violence across the region.
Hezbollah and the Iranian leadership share a similar world view and strategic vision and are seeking to exploit the current unrest in the region to their advantage. This approach has increased sectarian tensions and conflict and serves further as a destabilizing force during a time of great change throughout the region.
Michael Rubin, a senior research fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, said he feared the IRGC designation "might exculpate the rest of the regime when, in reality, the IRGC's activities cannot be separated from the state leadership of Supreme Leader Khamenei or President Ahmadinejad". The Iranian newspaper Kayhan quoted the commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards as threatening to deal heavier blows against the United States in response to the designation. Mohammad Khatami, former Reforms Front Iranian President hoped to "remind those in the U.S. Congress or elsewhere working for the benefit of the American nation to stand against these measures or the wall between the two countries grow taller and thicker".
This would be the first time that official armed units of sovereign states are included in a list of banned terrorist groups. Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, a former consultant to the UN's program of Dialogue Among Civilizations, stated in Asia Times Online that the move has possible legal implications: "Under international law, it could be challenged as illegal, and untenable, by isolating a branch of the Iranian government for selective targeting. This is contrary to the 1981 Algiers Accords' pledge of non-interference in Iran's internal affairs by the US government". News leaks about the prospective designation worried European governments and private sector firms, which could face prosecution in American courts for working with the IRGC.