Bloomberg | Kambiz Foroohar, Ladane Nasseri and Gregory Viscusi: French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrived in Tehran as part of a European drive to salvage the nuclear deal with Iran that President Donald Trump is threatening to scuttle and the Islamic Republic has said it may be forced to abandon.

Le Drian’s Monday trip -- the first by an official in President Emmanuel Macron’s administration -- is a balancing act: He’ll need to reassure Iran of the European commitment to delivering economic benefits that were promised in the 2015 deal in return for curbing its nuclear program. But he must appease Trump, who’s vowed to back out of the multinational pact if Europe doesn’t help “fix” its “flaws.”

The trip is a foreign policy test for Macron, who’s managed to cultivate a closer relationship with the “America First” president than have other European leaders.

It will signal whether “France is independent and its relations with Iran are based on its own national interests rather than aligned with U.S. policy,” said Clement Therme, a research fellow with London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies who focuses on Iran.

Intensive Talks

In a phone call on Sunday, Macron’s office said, the French president told Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani that while his country remains committed to the nuclear deal, it has “demands about problems that are not within the accord,” such as Iran’s ballistic missile program and its regional activities, especially in Lebanon. “He underlined our expectations for a constructive contribution from Iran for a regional de-escalation and to work toward resolving crises in the Middle East,” according to the statement.

U.S. officials have been holding intensive talks with their counterparts in France, Germany and the U.K. -- which joined Russia, China and the U.S. in crafting the accord with Iran -- on how to address Trump’s concerns. The effective deadline is May 12, the next time Trump is due to decide whether to continue waiving sanctions under a U.S. law.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said European “attempts at “pleasing” Trump were a “pointless path.” European countries “are turning to radicalism in order to keep” the U.S. in the nuclear deal, the Tehran-based Etemad newspaper quoted Zarif as saying on Monday. “This will in the end harm the EU’s own policy.”

While Trump has called, in effect, for reopening the nuclear deal by making permanent some restrictions on Iran’s uranium enrichment that expire over coming years, Europeans are focusing on complaints that aren’t within the four corners of the accord -- including the ballistic missile program and Iran’s expanding involvement in regional strife.

Willing to Bend?

“The main thing the French need to tell Iran is that we are trying to create conditions whereby this deal can be sustained with U.S. participation,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, senior policy fellow at the European Council of Foreign Relations. “They will also want to have quite a robust conversation to address European security issues in the region, which includes conflict in Yemen and Syria and the missiles” program.

Iranian and European officials have held a series of talks in the past month to gauge areas of mutual concern, said two European diplomats who were briefed on the meetings. Iran has signaled some willingness to limit its ballistic-missile testing and would be open to discussing its regional role, they said.

Le Drian’s trip to Tehran coincides with a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Before his plane took off from Israel, Netanyahu said his first priority in talks with Trump at the White House on Monday will be to discuss Iran’s “aggression, its nuclear aspirations, and its aggressive actions in the Middle East in general and on our borders.” Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.

France, the U.K. and Germany -- known as the E3 -- joined the U.S. last week in condemning Iran’s alleged shipments of missiles to Houthi rebels in Yemen. At the same time, the European Union’s Ambassador to the U.S., David O’Sullivan, has cautioned that the EU wouldn’t support reimposing trade sanctions lifted under the nuclear deal under a different rationale.

“We will not do anything which jeopardizes the deal, which is absolutely fundamental to Europe’s national security,” O’Sullivan said in a meeting with Bloomberg News editors and reporters in Washington.

So far, Iran has adhered to the terms of the nuclear deal, as verified by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in 10 reports since the pact was implemented in January 2016. But the economic benefits it’s receiving in return have fallen short of expectations, even after energy and financial sanctions were lifted. Major banks and companies have avoided engaging with Iran from fear of running afoul of remaining U.S restrictions or seeing a “snapback” of sanctions given Trump’s threats.

Iran may be forced to leave the deal if the “destructive atmosphere” created by Trump doesn’t end, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in February. Tehran “cannot remain in a deal in which there is no benefit for us,” he said.

Europeans, led by French companies, have signed some major deals with Iran after a decade of strict sanctions.

Trade between France and Iran had fallen to 515 million euros in 2014 after years of sanctions, from 3.7 billion euros in 2004. In 2016, the year sanctions were eased, it bounced back to 722 million euros in exports, mainly pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and specialty chemicals, and 1.4 billion euros in imports -- almost all of it oil.

In 2016, French automaker Peugeot SA linked up with Iran Khodro Co. to refurbish a factory near Tehran that began producing a crossover model last year. Renault SA announced a joint venture in August 2017 to produce cars. National carrier Iran Air agreed on a deal of about $10 billion deal to buy 100 Airbus SE planes in December 2016. And energy giant Total SA is helping develop Iran’s South Pars gas field.

But most companies without a strong reason to be in Iran are staying away, said Ardavan Amir-Aslani, a lawyer at Cohen Amir-Aslani in Paris who handles Iranian affairs.

“There’s not a single major bank operating in Iran,” Amir-Aslani said. “There’s no large French, German or Italian bank there. Just weeny banks. There’s no project finance. The banks are all afraid they will be sanctioned by the U.S. Even if the risk is small, they think it’s too big a risk.”

— With assistance by Jonathan Ferziger