President Donald Trump has warned that the United States will target any Iranian trying to reach the country’s highly enriched uranium, saying that the nuclear material is under constant surveillance by the US military.
In an interview with the syndicated TV show Full Measure that aired on Sunday, Trump appeared to play down the significance of the uranium, which is believed to be buried under the rubble of nuclear facilities, remaining in Iran for now.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
“We’ll get that at some point, whenever we want. We have it surveilled,” Trump said.
“I did a thing called Space Force, and they are watching. If somebody walked in, they can tell you his name, his address, the number of his badge … If anybody got near the place, we will know about it, and we’ll blow them up.”
Iran’s highly enriched uranium is one of the major sticking points between Washington and Tehran in ceasefire negotiations to end the 10-week US-Israel war on Iran.
The US wants Iran to transfer the uranium outside the country and completely shut down its nuclear programme, but Tehran has stressed that it will not give up its right to a domestic enrichment programme.
Several international media reports have said that the uranium remains under nuclear sites that the US bombed in June 2025, but Tehran has not confirmed the location of the nuclear material.
Last month, Trump announced that Iran had agreed to allow Washington to retrieve the uranium and bring it to the US – claims that Tehran quickly dismissed.
Trump told Reuters on April 17 that the US would work with Iran “at a nice leisurely pace, and go down and start excavating with big machinery” to retrieve the uranium stockpile at the sites.
“We’ll bring it back to the United States,” he added.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei denied Trump’s claim. “Enriched uranium is as sacred to us as Iranian soil and will not be transferred anywhere under any circumstances,” he said.
Iran is estimated to have more than 400kg (882lb) of uranium enriched at 60 percent purity.
Uranium enrichment is a complex process of isolating and garnering the most radioactive variety – isotope – of the element to produce nuclear fuel.
When enriched to around 90 percent purity, uranium can be used to make nuclear weapons.
In 2015, Iran agreed to a multilateral deal that saw Tehran scale back its nuclear programme and cap its uranium enrichment at 3.67 percent under strict international supervision in exchange for lifting sanctions against its economy.
Trump nixed that agreement – known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – and started reimposing sanctions on Iran.
In response, Tehran – which denies seeking a nuclear weapon – began to advance its enrichment programme well beyond the limits set by the JCPOA.
Trump has argued that the ongoing conflict with Iran aims to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear bomb.
Asked about the rising oil prices due to the war, Trump said: “We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon because they’re crazy.”
The average price of one gallon (3.8 litres) of petrol or gasoline in the US has risen to more than $4.50 due to supply issues linked to the Iranian blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, fuelling inflation. It was less than $3 before the war.
Despite the truce that came into effect last month, skirmishes have erupted in the Gulf over the past week as the US continues to enforce a siege on Iranian ports amid Tehran’s Hormuz blockade.
Iranian state-affiliated news outlets reported on Sunday that Iran has delivered its response to the latest US proposal to end the war to Pakistan, which is mediating the talks.
But Trump said the war is not over while reiterating his claim that Iran has been “defeated”.
“They are defeated, but that doesn’t mean they’re done,” the US president said. “We could go in for two more weeks and do every single target. We have certain targets that we wanted, and we’ve done probably 70 percent of them, but we have other targets that we could conceivably hit.”