Overview
- Administration aides say President Trump sought a deal he could present as larger than the 2015 JCPOA and broader than earlier regional pacts to claim diplomatic credit.
- White House negotiators explored a nonmilitary plan to move Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium to U.S. custody or to trusted third countries as a way to limit Iran’s ability to build a bomb.
- Mr. Trump and officials rejected a military seizure of the uranium as too risky, and the transfer concept stalled amid practical, diplomatic and political concerns.
- Inside the White House the push mixed performative messaging with impatience, producing tensions that advisers say helped stall substantive progress on a technical solution.
- Reporting relies on unnamed aides and officials and notes that the outbreak of conflict undercut an already fragile negotiating window, leaving limits on Iran’s material and future diplomacy unresolved.