Although the Trump administration, like all previous U.S. governments, has supported the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), it oddly has been silent about the treaty as a justification for its June 12th bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities.
In the attached National Interest op-ed, “Should We Walk Away from the NPT or Double Down?” I argue that’s a mistake. The administration should double down on its support of the NPT, clarifying that there is no NPT right to make nuclear fuel and that the treaty needs to be enforced.
This should be an easy step for the administration to take: It’s essentially what the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities was all about. In the run up to the NPT review conference next April, the Trump administration has an opportunity to hit the ground running on both of these points.
As always I’m curious to get your take.
As Ever,
Henry S.
October 6, 2025
By: Henry Sokolski
Should the U.S. Walk Away from the NPT?
The whispering campaign against the NPT has begun. Several officials recently asked me, “what good is the NPT?” The developing world uses it to gang up on us. China and Russia use it to argue against forward-deploying American nuclear weapons. Nobody enforces it against the true proliferators, like North Korea and Iran. Wouldn’t it be best if we just let it die with malign neglect?
Why not float a few criticisms, fail to defend it at next year’s NPT Review Conference, and allow it to die? That, in turn, would relieve American nuclear exporters from burdensome nonproliferation restraints and level their playing field to capture nuclear power markets that would otherwise go to China and Russia.
No one has yet uttered this out loud. But, the administration will have to decide if it wants to soon. The NPT Review Conference is now only seven months away. The question is: will we double down on clarifying what the NPT ought to prohibit – nuclear fuel-making in places like Iran – and enforce it? Or, will we instead bad mouth it and bug out?
The United States has nearly let this happen before. Washington looked the other way when North Korea left the NPT in 2003. It didn’t sanction Pyongyang for leaving, even though it was still in violation. Washington also blinked when India – a country that never joined the NPT – exploded a bomb after it promised to keep its nuclear program “peaceful.” For this transgression, the United States ultimately rewarded New Delhi, lifting all NPT prohibitions against commercial nuclear commerce.
In 1979, Israel violated the Partial Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which was the supreme law of the land, not only for the United States but for Israel. The United States looked the other way and even rationalized what happened as a scientific oddity.
Given these past lapses, it wouldn’t take much to walk away from the treaty today. There is one persistent, worrisome problem, though – Iran’s nuclear misbehavior and its would-be imitators. Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, recently insisted that Iran must give up making nuclear fuel. Iran nuclear negotiator Witkoff explained why: fuel-making (enriching uranium) “enables weaponization.”
Is the administration serious? Does it intend to apply this point only to Iran or to other non-weapons NPT states – e.g. Saudi Arabia and South Korea? Putting its foot down against previous liberal readings of the NPT “right” to make nuclear fuel certainly is defensible.
During the treaty’s negotiation, nations tried to amend it to guarantee the right to the entire fuel cycle. The proposed amendment was rejected. The treaty’s drafters understood that they had to ban nuclear activities that came so close to bomb-making that there would be no way to prevent states from taking the last steps.
On this point, the United States and other like-minded nations have blinked. In the 1980s, the United States allowed Japan to make nuclear fuel as well as several EURATOM nations. It also humored Iranian rhetoric about Iran’s right to enrich uranium when it cut the 2015 nuclear deal allowing Iran to continue to do so. Those mistakes, however, hardly argue for making them hereditary.
There are those, however, who disagree. They insist America should help its friends get bombs (or get near them). This, they argue, is smarter than trying to prevent states from engaging in dangerous nuclear activities. More allied and friendly nuclear weapons or near-weapons states will deter America’s enemies.
Two World Wars that followed on frantic military attempts to deter them, though, suggest this is magical thinking. If anything, more countries going nuclear will make nuclear deterrence far more unreliable and expensive and drive up our missile and air defense requirements, including the Golden Dome.
This recommends doubling down on the NPT. The President has taken the first step with his insistence that Iran abandon its uranium enrichment program. He needs to follow through by insisting that future U.S. deals with nonnuclear weapons states require that they steer clear of nuclear fuel-making as well. Enforcing the NPT beyond the bombing of Iran would help.
America believes laws are meant to be broken. But, many important states – including Japan and Germany – think just the opposite, that laws are meant to be followed, unless they’ve been generally renounced. Doubling down on the NPT would strengthen this point and keep the current nuclear club from catalyzing into a crowd.
To read the full piece, click here.