US President Donald Trump has dealt a major blow to the Iran nuclear deal. On Friday, he declined to certify the agreement, signed in 2015 by his predecessor Barack Obama and several world powers, including China. 

 This is not the first time that Trump has applied a tactic of pressing for changes in pre-existing pacts before abandoning them if he doesn't succeed. 

However, Mostafa Khoshcheshm, a senior political analyst and commentator in Tehran, believes it is less likely for Trump to get what he wants on the nuclear deal this time, as scraping it would largely hit Trump's damaged reputation. 

"Repeated withdrawals from various accords have incurred lots of costs on Trump's reputation, making an abrogation of the nuclear deal with Iran much costly for him. Hence, Trump is trying to escape the costs and force the congress to take the decision. The path opted for revising the deal through domestic litigation to force Tehran with the US interpretation of the deal would not produce desirable results, as it will be in violation of the deal and Tehran would defy such demand. Therefore, this will be the US president again who would have to terminate the deal on his own and that would ruin his reputation," Khoshcheshm talked to CGTN’s Asia Today. 

Meanwhile, the European Union, France, Germany, UK, Russia and China have all voiced their support for the nuclear deal. However, Koshcheshm said the will of support needed to be turned into actions. He also suggested the European countries replace US with China as an intermediary when they do business with Iran. 

"For Iran, it needs to see actions in area of economy because as soon as the Congress fails to re-impose its interpretation on Iran, the US president will surely order to re-impose a part or all parts of the sanctions back on Iran, including the banking sanctions, then the European states and governments and others, they are responsible to show full support for their own enterprises and companies, to protect them against the US penalties and punishment. "

“The best way for them is re-directing all their banking facilities and trade ties to China, when they want to do deals with Iran,” said Koshcheshm.