iran is going to be one of the files that demonstrates just how obvious it is that trump really does not understand what he's doing.

the reason that obama went out of his way to build a sanctions regime - that included china, russia and india - is that unilateral sanctions on iran are merely a punitive measure on american capital. sanctions have absolutely no use as an incentive if the iranians can just trade with the other countries.

unfortunately, obama screwed the whole thing up, anyways, with his sanctions on russia. as soon as obama put sanctions on the russians, the russians removed their sanctions on the iranians. why would the chinese and indians put their own capital at a disadvantage, if the russians are trading with them? and, this is the reason that the iran deal exists as it does - because the whole regime was about to collapse, as a consequence of a foolish decision to put sanctions on moscow at the worst possible time. it was what they got, or nothing at all. and, it was largely a face-saving mechanism.

trump can wave his cock around all he wants, but he has no meaningful leverage so long as the sanctions are unilateral - and no chance of rebuilding a sanctions regime so long as he remains antagonistic towards china.

the iranians are correct to laugh at him.