Trump vows to obtain enriched uranium from Iran

US President Donald Trump has vowed that Washington will eventually obtain Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, even though Tehran has repeatedly insisted it would not surrender the material.

‘We will obtain highly enriched uranium; we will get it,’ Trump declared as he spoke to reporters at the White House, according to Al Arabiya and Anadolu Agency, on Friday 22 May 2026.

‘We will get it. We do not need it, we do not want it. We may destroy it after obtaining it, but we will not let them have it,’ the US president said.

Iran is believed to have around 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium, which Trump said has been buried following the bombing by the United States and Israel nearly a year ago.

Obtaining that uranium stockpile is part of Trump’s main objective in the war waged by the US and Israel against Iran. Trump has repeatedly asserted that Tehran will not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.

When speaking to reporters at the White House on Thursday, 22 May, Trump again asserted that the US will not allow Iran to possess a nuclear weapon.

‘Right now, we are negotiating, and we will see, but we will obtain it by any means. They (Iran) will not have a nuclear weapon,’ Trump said.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has issued a new directive stating that uranium near weapons-grade level must not be shipped abroad.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a separate statement, said he hoped that the visit of Pakistan’s military chief to Iran would advance diplomacy to end the war, noting that there had been progress.

‘I believe that the Pakistani envoy will travel to Tehran today. So, hopefully that will push this further,’ Rubio told reporters.