PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S negotiators face the arduous task of trying to convince the president that a deal he previously rejected is their best option in Iran.
Last month, Trump initially gave his blessing for a so-called “cash for uranium” deal, under which the US would release around $20 billion in frozen funds in exchange for Iran handing over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, sources familiar with the matter tell WIRED.
Trump’s negotiators, vice president JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, received repeated approvals from the president while they were in Islamabad, giving them confidence a deal was close.
But the deal unraveled, in part because Trump was warned by his team that there was a risk he could be seen as giving Iran “pallets of cash”—an echo of his own oft-stated criticism of Barack Obama’s Iran deal—and he pulled the plug, the sources said.
Except now, that’s once again the cornerstone of the current proposal.
