FIRST ON FOX – Experts on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s manipulative atomic weapons bargaining strategy issued a dire warning to team Trump negotiators on how to avoid falling into the trap of former President Barack Obama’s flawed nuclear deal with Iran.

President Trump issued a scathing indictment of Obama’s agreement when he withdrew from the atomic accord in 2018, declaring, “This was a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.” Trump asserted that Obama’s 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the formal name for the Iran nuclear deal, did not stop Tehran from building an atomic bomb.

Experts from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) published a report that outlines the 10 negotiating tactics Iran exploits to secure major concessions while retaining its capability to construct a nuclear weapon.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, left, speaks with an unidentified Omani official upon his arrival at Muscat, Oman, Friday, April 25, 2025, a day prior to negotiations with U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff. (AP)

UANI says Iran is seeking to play the EU against U.S. to weaken the Western alliance. The experts wrote that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali “Ayatollah Khamenei’s overarching strategy has been rooted in his so-called ‘West without the U.S.’ method. Grounded in Khamenei’s and the Islamic Republic’s vehement anti-Americanism, this strategy has sought to divide the Europeans from the U.S. to undercut U.S. national interests.”

UANI argued that the Iranian regime’s “gimmicks are meant to try to mask the fact that the Iranians are offering nothing more than the concessions it made to President Obama under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) of 2015.”

Iran seeks to manipulate nuclear talks to diminish the “ideal conditions for Israel and/or the U.S. to take military action against Tehran,” noted UANI. Trump’s military threats to target Iran’s nuclear facilities have forced Tehran to engage in negotiations, according to the experts.

Steve Witkoff, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, speaks in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 3, 2025. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

President Donald Trump may prefer a diplomatic solution to stop Iran’s creep toward a nuclear weapon, but recently claimed he’ll be “leading the pack” to war with the regime if talks falter. 

“I think we’re going to make a deal with Iran,” he told Time magazine in an interview published Friday, while claiming that President Joe Biden had allowed Iran to “become rich.” 

Fox News’ Morgan Phillips and Reuters contributed to this report.