President Donald Trump decided negotiations would go nowhere with Iranian officials after Tehran’s “clever” negotiators “procrastinated” and masked their true nuclear capabilities and goals, senior administration officials said Tuesday.
The officials, during a midday call with reporters that lasted just over an hour, went into details about the level at which Iran proposed enriching uranium. They also described a potential need to gain “physical control” of areas inside Iran to seize up to 10,000 kilograms of remaining nuclear materials — the kind of work that could require U.S. ground forces.
One senior official said American negotiators had a “Perry Mason moment” at the negotiating table when they concluded the Iranian side was “hiding” things and “being deceptive.”
A second administration official said Iranian officials, who stonewalled for about a week on presenting a “framework” for a civil nuclear program, “basically offered us a lot of political wins and some concessions.”
“But they were unwilling to give up the building blocks of what they needed to preserve in order to get to a bomb,” the second official said, claiming the American negotiators detected the Islamic Republic’s government was “trying to move it all underground to a place that would … have been outside the reach of military action.”
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to be candid on a call organized by the White House.
The second official told reporters on an afternoon briefing call that “it basically was a very obvious conclusion that there was no deal to do that would have created a different long-term paradigm.”
The first official mentioned a need to achieve “physical control of that territory” to seize the remaining nuclear items and either “dilute it on premises” or move them out of the country.
“And, so, I think the first question is: where is it? The second question is: how do we get to it, and how do we get physical control?” the first official said. “And then after that, it would be a decision of the president and the Department of War, CIA, as to whether we wanted to physically transport it or dilute it on premises.”
Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have not ruled out a need to deploy ground forces to Iran, and the president overnight said on social media “wars can be fought ‘forever,'” contradicting one of his few consistent policy stances against prolonged U.S. military engagements in the Middle East.
White House officials had not responded to a question submitted via email after the briefing call about whether Trump would consider using the U.S. Army or Marine Corps to secure such areas inside Iran to do that kind of work, nor did they answer another question about whether Trump had ordered one or both armed services to draw up plans to do so.
‘High oil prices’
Additionally, the second official claimed the U.S. side offered Tehran “free” nuclear fuel forever — as well as potential business deals around a “peaceful” nuclear program. Such global deals have been a hallmark of the second Trump administration.
The first Trump administration official said the Iranian proposal “would have allowed them to enrich at a multiple of five times what was allowed under the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action],” adding the “clever” Iranian officials’ proposal masked weapons-level enrichment as being conducted for research purposes with mostly medical ends.
The JCPOA is a 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and six countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany.
The second official said U.S. negotiators told Trump they “probably” could reach an “Obama-plus” kind of nuclear pact, referring to the nuclear pact with Tehran negotiated by Barack Obama’s administration. Trump during his first term withdrew the United States from that agreement, contending it was too lenient on Iran.
“‘Look, if you decide that you want to do diplomacy, we’ll go, we’ll push as hard as possible. We’ll get in the room. We’ll fight for every point that we can,'” the second official said, recalling a recent conversation with Trump.
“But these guys,” the second official told reporters, “they just really were showing that, that they … weren’t willing to make the type of deal that President Trump would have been satisfied with.”
Shortly after the briefing call ended, Trump said on social media that U.S. Navy ships would soon begin escorting oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, which the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Monday it would close.
Trump also said he would, via the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), offer “at a very reasonable price” political risk insurance to all maritime trade moving through the Persian Gulf amid the American-Israeli war with Iran.
In a Truth Social post, he signaled that energy shipments would be prioritized, as the Brent Crude benchmark oil price surpassed $80 per barrel and gas prices rose in the U.S.
Trump was in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Friday to tout falling energy prices just hours before he ordered U.S. troops to attack Iran.
“No matter what, the United States will ensure the FREE FLOW of ENERGY to the WORLD,” Trump wrote Tuesday. “The United States’ ECONOMIC and MILITARY MIGHT is the GREATEST ON EARTH — More actions to come. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
During a media availability with reporters earlier Tuesday in the Oval Office, Trump shrugged off “high oil prices for a little while” as the Iran war spreads to other countries in the region, making a prediction that could shape his remaining time in office and November’s midterm elections: “As soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, I believe, lower than ever before.”
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