After Macron, Merkel also touches upon Iran deal with Trump

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the second European leader to visit the US this week after France's Emmanuel Macron, said she would be in close touch with US President Donald Trump on the nuclear Iran deal which the latter has slammed and could scrap, reigniting the Tehran problem before the world, BBC reported.

The brief visit of Merkel that lasted a few hours did not have the star quotient of that of Macron, but Trump nevertheless termed her as an "extraordinary women" and congratulated her on her win in the recent German election. He also rubbished the reports that his relation with Merkel was low although it was for everybody to see that the two allies fell short of the expectations in renewing their relations after Barack Obama gave way to Trump at the Oval Office last year.

Merkel although said the 2015 accord on Iran was a "first step" towards preventing it from prossessing nuclear weapons, she also added that the deal was not sufficient to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions completely. She said Europe and the US needed to be together on the issue.

May 12 is an important date on the issue since it is the deadline after which Trump would decide on resuming US sanctions on the West Asian country. Iran has also counter warned on its part, saying it could come up with expected and unexpected reactions if the US quit the deal. It even threatened to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and come up with disastrous consequences.

An analysis in the BBC said neither Macron nor Merkel made visible progress on the Iran deal during their visits to the US. It said both the high-profile leaders conveyed to Trump the same message that the N-deal on Iran was working but not without flaws and it should be used as the stepping stone to contain Tehran's ambitions.

The analysis said the European allies of the US were buying time to persist with the ongoing negotiations to address Trump's grievances, many of which they also harbour.

Trade differences became evident

Merkel's visit to the US, however, brought to the fore the differences over trade. The chancellor hoped to convince Trump not to go ahead and impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum products - a move which could rattle Europe's top performing economy, as experts indicated recently.