New York: Less than one in three Americans agrees with President Donald Trump's decision to pull the US out of an agreement to limit Iran's nuclear programme, according to a Reuters/Ipsos national opinion poll released on Tuesday.

The poll, conducted May 4-8, ahead of the Republican president's announcement to end the deal, found that 29% of adults wanted to end the deal with Iran and five other world powers to ease sanctions and limit Iran's nuclear programme.

Another 42% said the US should remain in the deal, and the remaining 28% said they “don’t know.”

Even among those who are registered as Republicans, less than half – 44% – advocated ending the US involvement in the deal. Another 28% wanted to remain, and the remaining 28% said they did not know.

Trump, who has long criticised the 2015 agreement for not being tough enough on Iran, announced that he was terminating America's involvement and would impose the "highest level" of economic sanctions against the country.

According to the poll, 54% of Americans said they “strongly” or “somewhat” supported the Iran nuclear agreement while 27% said they were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed to it.

Many Americans also appeared to be concerned about what would happen if Trump pulled the US out of the deal.

Nearly two out of three adults said that if the US ended its agreement, Iran would likely announce that it was developing nuclear weapons. About half said they thought it would be likely that the US and Iran “will enter into armed conflict.”

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English throughout the US. It gathered responses from 1,277 adults, including 492 registered Republicans. It has a credibility interval of 3 percentage points for the entire sample and 5 percentage points for registered Republicans, meaning that the results could vary by that much in either direction.

(Reuters)

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