President Donald Trump has made it clear that he’s ready to be done with the much-maligned Iran nuclear deal. What that means, exactly, remains a topic of intense speculation with profound ramifications for the fate of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Barring an improbable last-minute deal with other JCPOA parties to extend certain nuclear restrictions and punish Iran for its ballistic missile tests, Trump is likely to reinstate a first batch of congressional sanctions lifted under the deal when his waiver authority expires on May 12. The administration would then be required to punish countries that import Iranian oil, while retaining wide latitude on how aggressively it goes after sanctions violators, particularly US allies who remain committed to making the deal work.

The president’s plans beyond the May 12 deadline are even more enigmatic.

The deal has no formal exit mechanism, so Trump could conceivably reinstate some relatively benign sanctions and call it a day while Iran and the other parties to the deal continue to implement it even as the United States remains on the sidelines. On the other end of the spectrum, Trump could reimpose a whole slew of US sanctions in one fell swoop or even make use of a little-noticed provision of the JCPOA that would trigger a diplomatic standoff at the United Nations and force a resumption of international sanctions, condemning the deal to die.