President Donald Trump has said nuclear materials are under constant surveillance by the US military and warned that the US would target Iranians who try to access the country’s highly enriched uranium.
In an interview with the syndicated TV show Full Measure that aired Sunday, President Trump appeared to downplay the importance of uranium, believed to be buried under the rubble of nuclear facilities, remaining in Iran for now.
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“If we want it, we’ll have it anytime. We’re watching,” Trump said.
“I did something called Space Force. They keep watch. If someone comes in, they give us their name, address, badge number. If someone approaches the location, we know and we blow them up.”
Iran’s highly enriched uranium has become one of the major sticking points between the US and Iranian governments in ceasefire negotiations aimed at ending the US and Israel’s 10-week war against Iran.
The United States wants Iran to move uranium out of the country and completely halt its nuclear program, but Tehran has stressed that it has no intention of giving up its rights to its domestic enrichment program.
Multiple international media outlets have reported that uranium remains under the nuclear facility that the United States bombed in June 2025, but the Iranian government has not confirmed the whereabouts of the nuclear material.
Last month, President Trump announced that Iran had agreed to allow the U.S. government to recover uranium and bring it to the United States, a claim that Tehran quickly dismissed.
President Trump told Reuters on April 17 that the United States would work with Iran “at a slow pace to begin drilling with large machines to recover the uranium stockpiles that are on the ground.”
“We’re going to bring it back to the United States,” he added.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghai denied President Trump’s claims. “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 over 400 kg (882 pounds) of enriched uranium with a purity of 60 percent.
Uranium enrichment is a complex process that isolates and collects the most radioactive types of elements, or isotopes, to make nuclear fuel.
Once uranium is enriched to about 90 percent purity, it can be used to make nuclear weapons.
In 2015, Iran agreed to a multilateral agreement to scale back its nuclear program and limit its uranium enrichment to 3.67% under strict international oversight in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.
President Trump abandoned the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and began reimposing sanctions on Iran.
In response, the Iranian government has begun pursuing an enrichment program far beyond the limits set by the JCPOA, although it denies seeking nuclear weapons.
President Trump has claimed that the ongoing conflict with Iran is aimed at stopping the country from developing a nuclear bomb.
When asked about the soaring price of oil caused by the war, President Trump said, “Iran is crazy and we cannot allow it to have nuclear weapons.”
Supply problems caused by Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have pushed the average price of a gallon of gasoline (3.8 liters) in the United States to more than $4.50, accelerating inflation. Before the war, it was less than $3.
Despite a cease-fire agreement that took effect last month, skirmishes have broken out in the Gulf over the past week as the US continues to siege Iranian ports amid Tehran’s blockade of Hormuz.
Iran’s state news agency reported on Sunday that Iran has conveyed its response to the latest US proposal to end the war to Pakistan, which is mediating the talks.
But President Trump said the war was not over, repeating his claim that Iran had been “defeated.”
“They were defeated, but that’s not the end of it,” the US president said. “We could go on for two more weeks and hit all of our goals. There are some goals that we wanted to hit and we’ve probably hit 70 percent of them, but there are other goals that we could probably hit.”
