Donald Trump is reportedly weighing up a proposal that would allow Iran to resume uranium enrichment within a decade, contradicting his justification for the war
Donald Trump is reportedly considering an option that would permit Iran to restart uranium enrichment within a decade. The US President has provided varying justifications for the conflict in the Middle East but has repeatedly said that a key goal is guaranteeing the nation will “never have a nuclear weapon”.
Iran possesses 440.9kg of uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity, which represents a brief, technical leap from weapons-grade concentrations of 90 per cent, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear monitoring body.
The existing stockpile could enable Iran to construct up to 10 nuclear bombs, should it choose to weaponize its programme, IAEA Director General Rafael Gross has said.
A fresh proposal now under Trump’s consideration would reportedly require Iran to halt uranium enrichment for the forthcoming years before allowing the regime to generate some low-enriched uranium over the subsequent decade, the New York Times reports.
Trump is said to have advocated for a 20-year moratorium because he worried anything shorter would make his agreement appear too comparable to the 2015 nuclear accord he eventually abandoned.
The nuclear pact signed by Barack Obama blocked Iran from enriching uranium beyond civilian thresholds for 15 years.
Iran has long maintained its programme serves peaceful purposes, but the IAEA and Western countries insist Tehran operated an organised nuclear weapons programme until 2003.
IAEA inspectors have been unable to verify the near weapons-grade uranium since June 2025, when Israeli and American strikes significantly weakened Iran’s air defences, military leadership and nuclear programme. The absence of inspections has made it challenging to pinpoint its exact location.
Grossi has said that the IAEA suspects a stockpile of approximately 200 kg of highly enriched uranium is stashed in tunnels at Iran’s nuclear complex outside of Isfahan. The site was primarily recognised for producing the uranium gas that is fed into centrifuges for spinning and purification.
He said additional quantities are thought to be housed at the Natanz nuclear site and smaller amounts may be stored at a facility in Fordo.
Experts have highlighted the difficulty the US would face in ensuring that Iran possesses no enriched uranium, as it would be hard to locate and then eliminate.
Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is contained in canisters each weighing about 50 kg when full. The material takes the form of uranium hexafluoride gas with estimates on the number of canisters ranging from 26 to roughly double that figure, depending on how full each cylinder is.
The canisters holding the highly enriched uranium are “pretty robust” and are designed for storage and transport, said David Albright, a former nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq and founder of the nonprofit Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.
But he cautioned that “safety issues become paramount” should the containers be compromised – for instance, through aerial bombardment – allowing dampness to penetrate them.
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