BEIJING — President Donald Trump on Friday said a 20-year moratorium on Iran’s nuclear program would be enough for him to strike a deal and end the war.
The allowance for Iran to enrich uranium at any point in the future — even decades out — marks a shift for the president, who has repeatedly insisted that the country never be allowed to do so.
Even as reports proliferated that the U.S. was negotiating some kind of timeline behind the scenes, the Trump administration denied that they’d accept anything less than a full surrender and a permanent end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
But as Trump flew home from a two-day summit in China amid a war with seemingly no easy end in sight, the president, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, appeared to move the goalposts.
“Twenty years is enough but the level of guarantee from them is not enough,” he said about Tehran’s latest offer. “In other words, it’s got to be a real 20 years.”
The president said he looked at the latest proposal from Iran and threw it away, adding: “If they have any nuclear of any form, I don’t read the rest of it.”
The 12-day war destroyed Iran’s ability to enrich new material for the foreseeable future, though it retains a stockpile of roughly 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium that Washington is pressing it to surrender.
Trump said he is optimistic Tehran would agree to a deal eventually and said the Iranians told him only the U.S. and China has the equipment to remove what he calls “nuclear dust.”
Earlier this week, the president said Tehran’s latest peace proposal was “totally unacceptable” after it formally submitted its response to the latest U.S. proposal to end the war. It was one of multiple peace proposals the U.S. and Iran have submitted since Pakistan brokered a ceasefire between the two sides on April 8.