US President Donald Trump has explicitly ruled out using a nuclear weapon against Iran, following earlier threats that had raised global alarm.
“No, I wouldn’t use it,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday. “Why would I use a nuclear weapon when we’ve, in a very conventional way, decimated them without it?”
He added: “A nuclear weapon should never be allowed to be used by anybody.”
The remarks come after Trump issued a severe warning to Iran on April 7, stating that “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back.” Within hours, however, he agreed to a ceasefire in the conflict initiated by the United States and Israel—a truce he has since extended.
Vice President JD Vance had previously suggested during the conflict that the US was prepared to escalate with weapons not yet deployed, though the White House denied he was referring to nuclear strikes. Vance had also pushed Iran for greater concessions over its contested nuclear programme during failed negotiations.
Trump told reporters he sought 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 seeking nuclear weapons, and the UN nuclear watchdog has stated that an atomic bomb was not imminent before the war.
The United States remains the only country to have used nuclear weapons in combat, having obliterated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War, killing an estimated 214,000 people. Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons but does not publicly acknowledge them.
Trump’s blanket rejection of nuclear use appears to conflict with longstanding US nuclear doctrine, which reserves the right to deploy such weapons. His statement also follows previous calls to end a US moratorium on nuclear testing, citing alleged secret tests by China and Russia.
Former president Barack Obama advocated for the eventual goal of a world without nuclear weapons, though his administration maintained that as long as such weapons existed, the US arsenal would serve as a deterrent. Washington has consistently rejected calls for a no-first-use policy.
