Donald Trump has ruled out using a nuclear weapon against Iran, stepping back from earlier rhetoric in which he threatened to wipe out the country’s civilization.
“No, I wouldn’t use it,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
“Why would I use a nuclear weapon when we’ve, in a very conventional way, decimated them without it?” he asked. “A nuclear weapon should never be allowed to be used by anybody.”
His comments mark a shift from his April 7 warning that a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back,” issued at the height of tensions in the ongoing conflict involving the United States and Israel.
Vice President JD Vance had earlier warned that Washington was prepared to escalate strikes on Iran using weapons not previously deployed, though the White House denied that nuclear options were being considered.
Trump insisted his goal remains an Iran “without a nuclear weapon that’s going to try and blow up one of our cities or blow up the entire Middle East.”
Iran has consistently denied pursuing nuclear weapons, while the UN nuclear watchdog previously assessed that an atomic bomb was not imminent before the outbreak of hostilities.
The United States remains the only country to have used nuclear weapons in war, during World War II, when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing about 214,000 people.
Trump’s blanket opposition to nuclear use appears to diverge from long-standing US policy, which maintains the option of deploying nuclear weapons under extreme circumstances.
