9 hours ago
6
Politics|Trump Gives Conflicting Signals and Mixed Messages on Iran Nuclear Talks
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/us/politics/trump-iran-nuclear-negotations.html
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
News Analysis
The Trump administration started with an simple goal: Make Iran dismantle its nuclear and missile programs. Then its top negotiator started softening his tone, and had to retreat.
David E. Sanger, who covers the White House and national security, has reported on the Iranian nuclear program for more than two decades. He reported from Washington.
- April 15, 2025, 8:06 p.m. ET
Just a few weeks ago, President Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, a longtime hawk on Iran, cast the administration’s goal in negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program in crystal clear terms.
“Full dismantlement,” he said. He went on to list what that meant: Iran had to give up facilities for enriching nuclear fuel, for “weaponization” and even its long-range missiles.
But what sounded like a simple, tough-sounding goal on a Sunday talk show has started to unravel. In the past 24 hours, officials have left a contradictory and confusing set of messages, suggesting the administration might settle for caps on Iran’s activities — much as President Barack Obama did a decade ago — before backtracking on Tuesday.
Some of this may simply reflect inexperience in dealing with nuclear weapons programs. Mr. Trump’s chief negotiator is Steve Witkoff, a friend of the president’s who, as a New York developer like him, has spent a lifetime dealing with skyscrapers but only began delving into Iran’s underground nuclear centrifuges and suspected weapons labs a few weeks ago.
But the inconsistency also appears rooted in the splits inside Mr. Trump’s national security team as it grapples anew with one of the longest-lasting and most vexing problems in American foreign policy: How to stop Iran’s nuclear program without going to war over it. So far, the result is a blitz of mixed messages, conflicting signals and blustering threats, not unlike the way Mr. Trump and his aides talk about their ever-evolving tariff strategy.
The issue came to the fore on Monday night when Mr. Witkoff began talking about his first encounter with Iran’s foreign minister last Saturday in Oman. The meeting went well, he said, plunging into the complex world of Iran’s nuclear program, which has taken it to the very threshold of building a weapon.
