President Donald Trump said on Friday that Iran has “agreed to everything” and will work with the United States to remove its enriched uranium.
The president told CBS News in a phone interview that the removal operation will not involve U.S. troops on the ground.
“No. No troops,” he said. “We’ll go down and get it with them, and then we’ll take it. We’ll be getting it together because by that time, we’ll have an agreement and there’s no need for fighting when there’s an agreement. Nice right? That’s better. We would have done it the other way if we had to.”
The other way would have involved troops going in and seizing the material.
“Our people, together with the Iranians, are going to work together to go get it. And then we’ll take it to the United States,” he said of the enriched uranium.
BREAKING: President Trump tells CBS News Iran has “agreed to everything,” including the removal of enriched uranium. https://t.co/eac5lIcNUD
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 17, 2026
Axios had previously reported that several proposals were in discussion, with one being the possibility of the uranium being moved to a third-party country.
Iran had sought an agreement allowing them to “down-blend” their enriched uranium.
“A top priority for the Trump administration is ensuring Iran can’t access the stockpile of nearly 2,000kg of enriched uranium buried in its underground nuclear facilities, in particular the 450kg enriched to 60% purity,” Axios explained.
🚨 FOX NEWS ALERT: Peter Doocy reports President Trump just told CBS News the Iranian regime has AGREED to allow U.S. personnel to enter Iran to collect and extract leftover uranium.
“This explained why it is he’s so confident a deal is about to be closed with the Iranians.”… pic.twitter.com/hvhw2KluLW
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) April 17, 2026
Most commercial nuclear power plants use 3 to 5 percent enriched uranium, and 90 percent is often the threshold associated with nuclear weapons, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
Before the outbreak of the war, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News that in March, Iranian negotiators boasted to him that they had enough enriched uranium to build 11 nuclear weapons.
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The Iranian negotiators apparently said “they had the inalienable right to enrich all their nuclear fuel that they possessed,” Witkoff said.
“We, of course, responded that the president feels we have the inalienable right to stop you dead in your tracks,” he added.
“In that first meeting, both the Iranian negotiators said to us, directly, with no shame, that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60 percent, and they’re aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs, and that was the beginning of their negotiating stance,” Witkoff recounted.
He explained that 60 percent enriched uranium can be brought to weapons grade in roughly one week in a nuclear facility.
Witkoff noted, “They were proud that they had evaded all sorts of oversight protocols to get to a place where they could deliver 11 nuclear bombs.”
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz initiated on Monday was costing Iran up to $435 million a day, including $276 million in lost exports.
The blockade, coupled with weeks of air strikes from the U.S. and Israel, which devastated Iran’s steel and petrochemical facilities, has the country’s economy on the brink of collapse.
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