Although last Saturday’s ceasefire negotiations with Iran failed to resolve the future status of its nuclear program, the issue is sure to be joined in the upcoming Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference April 27th.
In the attached Wall Street Journal op-ed, “NPT Gives Trump a Way to Rally the World Against Iran”, I argue President Trump should interpret the NPT more tightly regarding nuclear fuel making, withdrawing from the treaty, and enforcing its restrictions on manufacturing nuclear weapons.
Does the NPT recognize Iran’s “right” to make nuclear fuel by enriching uranium and chemically separating plutonium from spent fuel? I argue it does not.
Should a country found in violation of its NPT inspection obligations be allowed to withdraw from the treaty with impunity? I argue it should not. Iran has threatened to withdraw. I argue that any country, including Iran, that is in violation should automatically be sanctioned if they attempt to withdraw until they come into full compliance.
Finally, should the United States and other like-minded nations do more to clarify how the NPT’s prohibition against non-weapons states manufacturing or otherwise acquiring nuclear weapons should be enforced? I argue they should.
Other issues are likely to come up at the conference, but these three may matter the most. As always, I’m curious to get your thoughts on the attached.
As Ever,
Henry S.
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April 14, 2026
By: Henry Sokolski
NPT Gives Trump a Way to Rally the World Against Iran
Even though Iran is a member of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, it has relentlessly pursued the bomb. Yet that’s no reason to abandon the NPT, which has been remarkably effective at preventing proliferation among member states from South Korea to South Africa and Libya. When the NPT Review Conference begins on April 27, the Trump administration has an opportunity to toughen the treaty, which would enhance both the U.S. position vis-à-vis Iran and the broader nonproliferation regime.
President Trump knows the Pentagon may have to target Iran’s nuclear program again. To make whatever action he takes stick, not only with Tehran but with its neighbors and beyond, he should take a tough view of the NPT—one that would prevent nonnuclear states from making nuclear fuels and bombs.
He is already sending a senior delegation to the conference. It’s all but certain it will protest, as previous delegations have, that China has failed to honor its NPT obligation (under Article VI) to negotiate nuclear-arms restraints in good faith. Delivering this familiar pitch is safe. But it won’t answer the question others are sure to raise: Why is America bombing Iran’s nuclear fuel making sites?
Tehran says these plants are “peaceful.” What’s our rejoinder? That Iran is a hostile, brutal state that can’t be trusted, that it had to be bombed because it was about to acquire a bomb?
Is the U.S. delegation prepared to reveal new information proving that crucial last point, à la Adlai Stevenson’s Cuban Missile Crisis slide show? Or will it merely be Washington’s word against Tehran’s, America’s against Iran’s claimed “peaceful” nuclear rights?
Moscow and Beijing, which insist Ukraine’s and Taiwan’s large nuclear plants are legitimate military targets, could seize on America’s example to justify bombing rules of their own. Ukraine and Taiwan, though, don’t make nuclear fuel, and they open their nuclear facilities to routine inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. In contrast, Iran is in clear violation of its NPT obligations to do so and has produced enough near-weapons-grade uranium to make 11 bombs.
Iran’s noncompliance is hardly new: Mr. Trump justified bombing Iran last June, spotlighting Iran’s failure to abide by its NPT-IAEA commitments. He should make the point again.
But why bomb Iran’s nuclear fuel-making plants? Tehran insists that Article IV of the NPT recognizes an “inalienable right” to enrich uranium. Previous U.S. administrations have been uncomfortable challenging that assertion. Mr. Trump should take it on directly.
Iran, after all, is threatening to withdraw from the NPT if this “right” isn’t respected. In 2005, the NPT Review Conference considered imposing automatic sanctions against nonweapons members who threatened to withdraw but were in violation of their treaty obligations. Today, that’s Iran.
But there’s another reason to push back on the “right” to enrich: There is no such right. The NPT makes no reference to uranium enrichment or plutonium recycling. These nuclear activities and the weapons materials they could produce can bring nations to the brink of building bombs.
Nuclear fuel-making entails processing liquids, gases and powders, molecules of weapons-usable uranium and plutonium that are nearly impossible to track. As for reliable, timely detection of military diversions, forget it. By the time inspectors might spot missing materials, a bomb might have already been built.
The NPT’s negotiators understood this. When Mexican delegates proposed an amendment to guarantee access to the “entire fuel cycle,” the convention rejected it. The British, Swedish and Burmese delegates explained why: Nuclear fuel-making was too close to bomb-making ever to be “peaceful.” They had a point. That’s why Mr. Trump is right to demand that Iran surrender all its enriched uranium and decommission its nuclear fuel-making plants.
Article II of the NPT bans the manufacture and acquisition of nuclear explosive devices, but lacks any enforcement features. That, too, should be corrected.
Will Beijing and Moscow take these points? We should find out. Russia has never helped NPT nonweapons states make nuclear fuel; it sells them Russian enriched fuel and offers to take back their plutonium-laden spent fuel. Even China at least lies about what nuclear assistance it gave to Iran and Pakistan. They both want to virtue-signal that they’re in compliance with a near-universal, popular effort to keep the bomb from spreading. America does too.
Washington, though, just approved a nuclear cooperative agreement with Saudi Arabia, which may allow it to make nuclear fuel, and greenlit Seoul for similar activity. A better idea is Mr. Trump’s suggestion that South Korea buy its enriched uranium from firms operating in the U.S. Meanwhile, if Washington blocks Tehran from making a bomb, Riyadh’s stated need to get a bomb by enriching evaporates.
Washington, in short, could hang tough and press NPT nations to prohibit nuclear fuel-making for all non-weapons member states that don’t yet enrich or recycle. Previous presidents lacked the courage to read the rules this tightly. Mr. Trump should break that mold.
To read the full piece, click here.