Iran’s Foreign Minister Responds to Trump’s Order Reinstating ‘Maximum Pressure’

Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, is seen in a file photo. Dieter Nagl/AFP/Getty Images

Iran’s foreign minister responded to President Donald Trump’s move to restore his “maximum pressure” campaign against the country but said that it would be willing to work with the United States on nuclear arms.

During a White House event with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, Trump said that he hoped for an agreement with Iran but said Tehran “cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

If Iran “can convince us that they won’t ... I hope they can,” Trump also said, “It’s actually very easy to do; I think they’re going to have an unbelievable future.”

The “maximum pressure” campaign, which was signed in a national security memorandum by Trump, seeks to deny Iran “all paths to a nuclear weapon, and countering Iran’s malign influence abroad,” as well as calling for the dismantling of Iran’s “terrorist network” and blocking its development of missiles, asymmetric weapons, and other similar capabilities.

In response, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters that the regime is willing to work with the Trump administration but stressed that the campaign won’t work.

“If the main concern is that Iran should not pursue nuclear weapons, this is achievable and not a complicated issue. Iran’s position is clear: it is a member of the Non Proliferation Treaty, and the Supreme Leader’s fatwa has already clarified our stance [against weapons of mass destruction],” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters on Wednesday.

“Maximum pressure is a failed experience, and trying it again will lead to another failure.”

Trump initiated the “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran during his first term after exiting a nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers, which had lifted international sanctions in exchange for limits on Iran’s nuclear program.

The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Eslami, also told reporters that his country “has not sought, does not seek, and will not seek access to nuclear weapons,” according to state-run Tasnim News.

Also, on Tuesday, Trump said that if Iran assassinates him, he has given advisers instructions for a response.

“If they did that, they would be obliterated,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters as he was signing the maximum pressure order. “I’ve left instructions. If they do it, they get obliterated. There won’t be anything left.”

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday that claims that Tehran was seeking to kill U.S. officials were “fabrications by warmongers” and that Iran sought legal pathways to seek justice for the killing of its senior officials.

Federal authorities have said they’ve been tracking Iranian threats against Trump and former administration officials for years now. In 2020, Trump ordered an airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, which led to threats from high-level officials in Tehran against the president.

The Department of Justice said in November 2024 that an Iranian plot to kill Trump just before the presidential election had been averted. Iranian officials, it said, told Farhad Shakeri, 51, in September to surveil and try to assassinate Trump, according to a news release. Shakeri remains at large in Iran.

Reuters contributed to this report.