The Trump administration may not cut a nuclear deal with Iran and instead might pursue a policy of obliterating Tehran’s ability to ever obtain a nuke, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday.
Wright claimed that the US has already dramatically diminished Iran’s ability to develop a nuke and suggested that President Trump might just remain proactive about undermining Tehran’s abilities rather than seeking a deal.
“There may not be a nuclear agreement. It may be simply destroying their capabilities to do it,” Wright told ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday. “An agreement may await the next administration in Iran. We simply don’t know that.”
“I think what the president was communicating there is how critically important this is,” he went on. “If Iran has nuclear weapons, the Middle East, the world is a wildly different place than it is today.”
The US and Iran had cut a preliminary peace deal, dubbed the memorandum of understanding, that laid out a framework for negotiations over a full-fledged agreement.
But the MOU collapsed the following month, and Trump has instead used the military to blockade ships entering and exiting Iran, while working to get oil vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump has long made clear that his top priority with the war in Iran has been to ensure that the theocratic regime does not obtain a nuclear weapon.
Currently, there are questions surrounding Tehran’s activities in the heavily fortified underground facility at Pickaxe Mountain.
“We may hit Pickaxe very soon because if there was anything going on with Pickaxe,” Trump recently told reporters.
“We know everybody that’s moving at Pickaxe; we know everybody that’s moving everywhere all over Iran. And if anything goes bad, we hit them; we hit them hard.”
Last month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent launched “Operation Economic Outcast” to further tighten the screws on Iran by pressuring countries to cut off business with the Islamic Republic.
“This is the greatest economic isolation operation in the HISTORY of the world. We are going to asphyxiate the regime,” Bessent told Fox News’ “My View with Lara Trump” in an interview that aired Saturday.
Those efforts have been remarkably crippling for Iran, which has withstood economic sanctions for decades.
Some top officials in Iran have admitted the measures took a toll, with the country’s currency in freefall.
“You have to destroy their capabilities to do it,” Wright explained about the alternative to a nuclear deal. “They built a massive missile infrastructure to manufacture missiles, which you see them firing today, but they don’t have the capability to build more missiles.”
“We are degrading their capacity to develop nuclear weapons and ultimately to deliver them if they develop them,” he went on. “It is a 47-year-long effort. This is not trivial, but the United States will get the job done, and we will work in cooperation with our allies in the region.”
As for gas prices, which remain at a high $4.14 a gallon nationwide, according to data from the American Automobile Association, Wright was optimistic that they’ll come down.
He noted how the Trump administration adjusted its refinery spec requirements to make it easier to ramp up gasoline and diesel production, as well as the efforts to get oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
“And Venezuela, I wouldn’t discount it,” he said. “The Trump administration is working on all fronts from the Gulf of America to Alaska to onshore in the U.S. to our allies in the hemisphere to grow energy production in long term to reset energy prices lower and more stable supply chain.”
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