While President Trump has repeatedly declared that the United States’ military strikes on key Iranian enrichment and research sites “totally obliterated” the country’s nuclear facility, the intelligence community and other officials within his administration have quietly insisted that reaching a diplomatic solution was just as critical as ever.
On Tuesday, multiple officials told ABC News that an initial intelligence report assessed that the attack on Iranian facilities over the weekend did not completely destroy the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months.
In the wake of the strikes, European allies have also been attempting to make the case for renewed nuclear diplomacy to Trump administration officials, and a source familiar with the conversations says Secretary of State Marco Rubio has acknowledged that there’s still a need for a diplomatic solution.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks after casting his ballot during the runoff presidential election in Tehran, on July 5, 2024. | Former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump waves at supporters at the end of a campaign rally in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Nov. 4, 2024.
Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images | Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images
But publicly, the Trump administration has sent mixed messages on the urgency behind renewed negotiations with Iran.
“Iran’s not going to have a nuclear weapon,” the president told reporters on Tuesday. “I think it’s the last thing on their mind right now.”
As he travelled to The Hague for a summit of NATO leaders, President Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, that China would be permitted to purchase oil from Iran.
Officials within the Trump administration didn’t answer questions on whether the president was indicating he would lift any sanctions on Iran, but analysts predicted the comments could signal a shift toward lax enforcement of the trade restrictions targeting the country.
On Tuesday, public-facing officials in Washington also notably declined to describe the U.S. approach to Iran as “maximum pressure”– the often-repeated phrase used by the administration to refer to the sanctions campaign waged against the regime following the president’s decision to leave an Obama-era nuclear deal with the country in 2018.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters onboard Air Force One en route to the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, June 24, 2025.
Brian Snyder/Reuters
Sources say Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, has been in contact with Iran throughout the conflict with Israel, but so far, U.S. officials have not pushed plans for another face-to-face meeting.
“A return to diplomacy must start as soon as possible,” said Dana Stroul, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East.
“There was never going to be military operations, either Israeli operations or US military operations, that could completely eliminate Iran’s program,” said Stroul, who was the Pentagon’s top Middle East official between 2020 and 2023. “And we already know that the stockpile of enriched uranium was moved. We don’t know where it is, and we know that some of Iran’s nuclear facilities have been damaged but not eliminated.”
Rafael Grossi, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, indicated on Monday that he believes Iran’s enriched uranium has been moved — but said that the nuclear watchdog currently has no accounting of it.
When asked about the urgency of restarting nuclear negotiations, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce stated the president was “confident” Iran could not obtain a nuclear weapon.
“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” she said. “And the understanding is now they’re not going to have one.”
“How we move forward from here is up to the president of the United States,” Bruce added.
Iran and the U.S., in the spring of this year, held five rounds of indirect talks, which the State Department at the time did not call “negotiations,” related to Tehran’s nuclear program.
If the sides came together again, talks would again hinge on the president’s key demand that Iran vow not to enrich uranium on its own soil, said Stroul, who is now the director of research and a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“The question is whether the Trump administration is going to double down and demand that Iran give up all domestic enrichment and complete the dismantling of its facilities,” she said. “And that presumably would happen under the auspices of the IAEA, which is why the Director General, Rafael Grossi, is asking to get into Tehran as fast as possible.”
Public statements from Iran have been focused on portraying the regime’s strength rather than diplomacy, as the country’s officials have signaled it will swiftly restore its damaged nuclear program.
“The plan is to prevent interruptions in the process of production and services,” Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami said Tuesday, according to the country’s state media.
Andrea Strickler, the deputy director of the nonproliferation and biodefense program at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, says Iran’s vow is reason for the Trump administration to double down on diplomacy.
“To prohibit Iran from ‘building back better’ its nuclear threat, Washington should seek a negotiated solution with the regime requiring its full, permanent nuclear dismantlement,” she said, emphasizing that a deal “must turn over all remaining secret assets like enriched uranium, centrifuges, and facilities.”
President Donald Trump arrives for a formal dinner at the Huis Ten Bosch Palace during the NATO Summit in The Hauge, Netherlands, June 24, 2025.
Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP
Grossi’s repeated comments that the IAEA is unaware of the uranium’s whereabouts have raised concerns among proliferation experts.
“While Iran’s ability to enrich uranium has been severely degraded, the existence of this already 60 percent enriched material means that a significant barrier to weaponization has already been overcome,” said Joseph Rodgers, deputy director and fellow with the Project on Nuclear Issues in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“The longer the location of this highly enriched uranium stockpile remains unknown, the greater the potential for a proliferation crisis,” Rodgers continued.
Vice President JD Vance indicated in an interview with ABC News’ Jon Karl on Sunday that the Trump administration would “work with” Iran to “do something with that fuel,” but it’s unclear if any progress has been made on that front.
Vance and other U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have said the U.S. has continued to communicate with Iran via intermediaries. Hegseth said Sunday, “both public and private messages” were being “directly delivered to the Iranians, giving them every opportunity to come to the table.”
Stroul said the weekend strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites “marked a decisive shift” in Washington’s approach to Iran’s nuclear program, and that “the regime in Tehran has to understand now…that the Americans are willing to put serious skin in the game in an offensive way.”
“Iran is vulnerable diplomatically,” she said, arguing the US no longer has a “containment” posture toward Iran and that the president is in a position to “demand the completion of the dismantling of the infrastructure of Iran’s nuclear program, and to insist that the regime give up any future desire to enrich uranium domestically.”
