Senate Letter: Support for Full Dismantlement of Iran’s Nuclear Program

The Honorable Donald J. Trump
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President,

We write to express our strong support for your efforts to secure a deal with Iran that dismantles its nuclear program, and to reinforce the explicit warnings that you and officials in your administration have issued that the regime must permanently give up any capacity for enrichment.

During your first term you withdrew the United States from the deeply broken Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and imposed maximum pressure on the regime. As you said then, a fatal flaw of the deal was that it “allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium and, over time, reach the brink of a nuclear breakout.” The JCPOA allowed Iran to sell oil, provided waivers allowing third countries to help Iran build out its nuclear program, and included the termination of United Nations (UN) sanctions on the regime. Despite critics claiming your withdrawal from the deal would allow Iran to advance its nuclear ambitions, the Iranian regime remained deterred from making substantial nuclear progress throughout your term because of your maximum pressure campaign.

Tragically, the Biden administration systematically undid that pressure, functionally reimplementing the nuclear deal. They immediately rescinded your decision to reimpose UN sanctions, allowed Iran to sell oil at JCPOA-levels, and even re-issued waivers allowing Iran to build out its nuclear program. As you predicted, those policies indeed allowed Iran to reach the brink of nuclear breakout, which is where they are today. The Biden administration made those concessions without any reciprocal concessions from Iran, and Iran even ceased providing international inspectors access to significant parts of its nuclear program in the early days of the Biden administration.

The scope and breadth of Iran’s nuclear buildout have made it impossible to verify any new deal that allows Iran to continue enriching uranium. In its most recent report, published on February 26, the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that because of Iran’s activities over the last four years, “the Agency has lost continuity of knowledge in relation to the production and current inventory of centrifuges, rotors and bellows, heavy water and UOC, which it will not be possible to restore.”

You and your administration have therefore correctly drawn a redline against any deal that allows Iran to retain any enrichment capability. Your National Security Presidential Memorandum on Iran stated that “Iran’s nuclear program, including its enrichment- and reprocessing-related capabilities and nuclear-capable missiles, poses an existential danger to the United States and the entire civilized world,” and you recently said that only “full dismantlement” of those capabilities would be acceptable. Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff has made it clear in that context of negotiation that for any final arrangement to work, “Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.”

We cannot afford another agreement that enables Iran to play for time, as the JCPOA did. The Iranian regime should know that the administration has Congressional backing to ensure its ability to enrich uranium is permanently eliminated.

As always, we stand ready to provide you and your administration whatever resources you need to advance American national security interests.

Sincerely,

Sen. Pete Ricketts, United States Senator
Sen. Tom Cotton, United States Senator
Sen. Ted Cruz, United States Senator
Sen. John Thune, Majority Leader, United States Senate
Sen. John Barrasso, M.D., United States Senator
Sen. James E. Risch, Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Sen. Roger Wicker, United States Senator
Sen. Tim Scott, United States Senator
Sen. Mike Crapo, United States Senator
Sen. John Curtis, United States Senator
Sen. Steve Daines, United States Senator
Sen. John Cornyn, United States Senator
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, United States Senator
Sen. James Lankford, United States Senator
Sen. Kevin Cramer, United States Senator
Sen. David H. McCormick, United States Senator
Sen. Susan M. Collins, United States Senator
Sen. Cynthia M. Lummis, United States Senator
Sen. Tim Sheehy, United States Senator
Sen. John Hoeven, United States Senator
Sen. Jon Husted, United States Senator
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, United States Senator
Sen. Ted Budd, United States Senator
Sen. Dan Sullivan, United States Senator
Sen. Jim Banks, United States Senator
Sen. Rick Scott, United States Senator
Sen. John Boozman, United States Senator
Sen. Thom Tillis, United States Senator
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, United States Senator
Sen. Eric S. Schmitt, United States Senator
Sen. Jerry Moran, United States Senator
Sen. Katie Boyd Britt, United States Senator
Sen. Ashley Moody, United States Senator
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, United States Senator
Sen. Mitch McConnell, United States Senator
Sen. Joni K. Ernst, United States Senator
Sen. John Kennedy, United States Senator
Sen. Todd Young, United States Senator
Sen. Bill Hagerty, United States Senator
Sen. Deb Fischer, United States Senator
Sen. Bill Cassidy, M.D., United States Senator
Sen. M. Michael Rounds, United States Senator
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, United States Senator
Sen. Josh Hawley, United States Senator
Sen. Bernie Moreno, United States Senator
Sen. Ron Johnson, United States Senator
Sen. James C. Justice, United States Senator
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, United States Senator
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, United States Senator
Sen. Roger W. Marshall, United States Senator

Source: AIPAC, (May 14, 2025).