Energy Secretary Chris Wright said President Donald Trump may not reach a new nuclear agreement with Tehran during his presidency, suggesting the US could instead focus on destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

“There may not be a nuclear agreement. It may be simply destroying their capabilities to do it,” Wright told ABC’s This Week on Sunday. “We are degrading their capacity to develop nuclear weapons and ultimately to deliver them, if they develop them.”

He continued, “An agreement may await a next administration in Iran. We simply don’t know that.”

In 2015, President Barack Obama signed the JCPOA, an international nuclear pact with Iran that placed safeguards and inspections on Tehran’s program to ensure that it was not secretly developing a nuclear weapon. In 2018, Trump withdrew from the deal, even as Iran was fully complying with the pact. 

When President Trump returned to office in 2025, the US and Iran engaged in several rounds of negotiations aimed at establishing a new nuclear agreement. In June 2025, on the eve of a sixth round of talks between Washington and Tehran, Israel attacked Iran. After several days of Israeli strikes on Iran, the US joined the campaign with Operation Midnight Hammer. 

The 12-Day War halted US-Iran negotiations for several months. Negotiations resumed in February. Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who mediated the negotiations, said the talks made ‘significant progress,’ while an Iranian official offered concessions. However, the US and Israel again attacked Iran. 

Trump has repeatedly stated that the primary purpose of the ongoing conflict is to get an agreement that ensures Tehran will never obtain a nuclear weapon.