The White House sought Sunday to calm growing conservative outrage over President Donald Trump’s emerging agreement with Iran, insisting Tehran will receive no meaningful sanctions relief unless it fully gives up its stockpile of enriched uranium.
Administration officials stressed that despite Trump’s optimistic public comments about a developing memorandum of understanding, no final agreement is close to being signed and major disputes remain unresolved.
Trump revealed over the weekend that Washington and Tehran were nearing a framework that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restore oil shipments while creating a 30-day window for negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
The proposal immediately triggered alarm among Republican lawmakers and pro-Israel figures, prompting senior Trump officials to clarify that negotiations remain incomplete and that any finalized agreement is still at least several days away.
A senior administration official emphasized that Iran would gain little economically unless it follows through on private commitments to surrender its highly enriched uranium.
“Both sides must take their time and get it right. There can be no mistakes!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Sunday, one day after declaring the agreement was “largely negotiated.”
Administration officials said that description remains broadly accurate, though the remaining unresolved issues are proving to be the most difficult.
“95% is done, but literally changing words requires days of deliberation in their system,” the official said.
The senior administration source held multiple briefings with reporters Sunday in an effort to make clear that no agreement is imminent and that the Trump administration has no intention of repeating the Obama administration’s controversial cash payments to Iran.
“No dust, no dollars — in other words, no highly enriched uranium, then the Iranians aren’t going to get any real relief,” the official told journalists in a morning briefing.
“If they do nothing, they get nothing. If they do a lot, they can actually get a lot.”
The same official later argued that Trump’s negotiations would ultimately produce a far stronger agreement than the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
“we’ll get a better deal” than Obama’s multinational Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) pact, with the new arrangement featuring “clear enforcement, or no deal.”
The administration also stressed that reopening the Strait of Hormuz would not trigger immediate financial concessions to Tehran.
There will be “no pallets of cash [and] no other relief for opening the strait,” the official said.
Several Republican senators publicly voiced concern that the administration may be moving too quickly toward an agreement while leaving major questions unresolved after nearly three months of conflict.
Lindsey Graham described the possible framework as “a nightmare for Israel,” while Ted Cruz said he was “deeply concerned” the deal could become “a disastrous mistake.”
The administration official contrasted the current talks with the Obama administration’s nuclear agreement, which allowed Iran to continue limited uranium enrichment.
Under the JCPOA, “there were pallets of cash, and we did fly $1.7 billion of money from American banks there, and they used it to build centrifuges and finance terrorism,” the official said.
According to the administration source, U.S. and Iranian negotiators are now discussing a sweeping long-term ban on uranium enrichment, though the exact duration remains under debate.
“No one disputes that the stockpiled enriched material will be disposed of. It’s a question about how,” the official said.
“And then simultaneously, while we’re figuring out that question of how, we’re going to have this thing where the strait open, the blockade is lifted and we get the economy some breathing room.”
Trump himself repeatedly invoked the Obama-era agreement in social media posts Sunday, signaling awareness inside the White House that critics remain deeply skeptical of Tehran’s intentions.
“Our deal is the exact opposite, but nobody has seen it, or knows what it is. It isn’t even fully negotiated yet,” Trump wrote.
“So don’t listen to the losers, who are critical about something they know nothing about. Unlike those before me who should have solved this problem many years ago, I don’t make bad deals!”
Exactly how Iran might dispose of its enriched uranium remains one of the most sensitive unresolved issues in the talks.
The administration official acknowledged that Iranian domestic politics and “national pride considerations” have complicated negotiations over the uranium stockpile.
“There is a political value in the United States to getting it. There is obviously a political value in the Iranians not handing it over to the United States,” he said.
“A lot of the debate is not really what happens to the stockpiled material. But it’s how the Iranians can sell it to their own hardliners and to their own population in a way that gets us what we need as well, and that’s really the conversation that’s happening.”
According to the official, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has already “signed off on the broad template” of the agreement, despite continued denials in Iranian state media that Tehran is considering major nuclear concessions.
Trump recently floated the possibility of destroying Iran’s estimated 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium if it is handed over to the United States, while also referencing comments from Iranian officials suggesting only the U.S. or China could recover the material from the wreckage of Iran’s bombed nuclear facilities.
“They will open up the strait in exchange for us lifting the blockade, and they will agree in principle to dispose of the highly enriched uranium, but then there’s a question about how precisely to do that,” the U.S. official said.
As negotiations enter what officials describe as the decisive stage, the administration says competing political interests are attempting to shape or sabotage the outcome through leaks and pressure campaigns.
“Various foreign actors and sometimes domestic actors try to use selective leaks in order to push certain narratives or to derail certain things,” the official said.
“Now, I would say, by and large, most people in the Iranian system don’t love the deal, but they also don’t like the idea of going back to war,” he added.
{Matzav.com}
