terms

At the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, on June 17, Kenyan President William Ruto revealed that his country was nearing a critical minerals agreement with the United States. Far more significant was Kenya’s insistence that its rare earths, lithium, graphite, copper, nickel and niobium be refined and processed domestically rather than exported as raw materials. This was not simply another minerals deal; it was a signal that African governments are trying to rewrite the extractive bargain.

That demand, long voiced but rarely enforced, is beginning to reshape African resource governance. Namibia has prohibited exports of unprocessed lithium, cobalt, manganese, graphite and rare earths. Mali is constructing a 200-tonne-a-year gold refinery while requiring more local refining. Ghana will begin buying 30 percent of large-scale gold output from July 2026 to strengthen local refining and reserves. Across the continent, governments are increasingly requiring natural resources to create industries at home before generating profits abroad. The turn is not confined to critical minerals; it reflects a wider push to keep more value from natural resources at home.

Kenya’s move comes as the global race for critical minerals intensifies and Africa assumes greater strategic importance. Lithium consumption rose by almost 30 percent in 2024 as countries accelerated investment in electric vehicles, battery storage, renewable energy systems and advanced manufacturing. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects lithium use will increase fivefold by 2040, with graphite and nickel requirements roughly doubling.

This commodity boom differs in one crucial respect: The supply of critical minerals cannot expand rapidly. New mines often take well more than a decade to move from discovery through permits and development to first production, even as global demand continues to accelerate. The IEA estimates that, under its Stated Policies Scenario, announced mining projects will leave lithium supply 40 percent short of projected demand by 2035. Countries seeking secure supplies therefore have greater incentives to invest where the minerals already exist, giving African governments more room to negotiate local value addition, technology transfer and industrial investment.

For generations, the continent’s economic role has been brutally simple: Dig, ship and buy back the finished product. The transition minerals boom offers a rare opportunity to reverse that relationship. But this will require reliable power, transport, finance and skills, not export bans alone.

Mining is only the first step. The greatest wealth is created further along the production chain, when minerals are refined, processed and assembled into products that command far higher prices than the ore that left the ground. United Nations data illustrates how rapidly export value rises along the lithium-ion supply chain. In 2022, global exports of lithium ore and brine were worth about $20bn. Battery materials generated $51bn, cell components and battery packs $106bn, and electric vehicles $135bn.

Africa’s challenge is to move further along that chain. Every additional stage completed on the continent captures more income, creates more skilled jobs and embeds more technology before a single battery reaches the market.

Refining minerals is not an end in itself. It is the first step towards building the productive capabilities that distinguish manufacturing economies from extractive ones. Around every refinery cluster, engineering companies, chemical producers, equipment manufacturers, laboratories and specialist suppliers can emerge. Taiwan’s experience offers a broader lesson: With sustained policy, skills and supplier networks, industrial capabilities built in one generation can create higher-value industries in the next.

Africa’s growing confidence reflects a profound shift in supply chain politics. In a market this concentrated, countries that combine mineral deposits with downstream ambition can negotiate stronger terms. What has changed is not simply demand, but dependency: China is the dominant refiner for 19 of the 20 strategic minerals tracked by the IEA. For copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and rare earths, the top three refining countries control 86 percent of processed output. The continent should demand beneficiation, meaning the processing of raw materials into higher-value products before export, alongside technology transfer and industrial investment before those resources enter global supply chains.

History offers a cautionary lesson.

Gold, diamonds, copper and oil generated billions of dollars in exports across the continent, yet most resource-rich economies remained dependent on exporting raw commodities rather than manufacturing higher-value products.

The colonial economy was built around those outward flows. In what is now Zambia, copper from Nkana, Mufulira and Nchanga moved through Ndola and across the rail network to Beira, the Mozambican port that linked the Copperbelt to overseas smelters and factories. Across the Gold Coast, in present-day Ghana, cocoa from Kumasi travelled by rail to Sekondi and later Takoradi before entering Britain’s chocolate industry.

Today’s export restrictions, refining mandates and beneficiation policies seek to disrupt that flow. The prize is to capture the industries built around those minerals before they take root elsewhere.

The real wealth in Africa’s transition minerals boom will not be measured by what leaves its ports, but by what never has to. Every tonne of lithium refined, every battery precursor produced and every stage of manufacturing completed before export shifts more income, technology, investment and skilled employment onto the continent.

Research by Publish What You Pay suggests that expanding higher-value mineral processing across Africa could generate an additional $32bn in annual exports, add up to $24bn to the continent’s gross domestic product and create about 2.3 million jobs. More importantly, it would leave behind industries, technologies and expertise that outlast the minerals themselves.

Nigeria’s Dangote refinery provides Africa’s clearest demonstration of what beneficiation can achieve. Located in the Lekki Free Zone outside Lagos and built at a cost of about $20bn, the 650,000-barrel-a-day facility is Africa’s largest single-train refinery.

Since beginning production in early 2024, the refinery has helped transform Nigeria’s energy sector. For decades, the country imported much of its refined fuel, spending billions of dollars in foreign exchange. The refinery now supplies much of the domestic market while exporting petrol, diesel and jet fuel to Ghana, Cameroon, Togo, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

Between February and March 2026, Nigeria’s clean petroleum exports more than doubled from about 100,000 barrels a day to 214,000 barrels, while helping anchor a new industrial ecosystem of marine infrastructure, storage terminals, petrochemical plants and fertiliser production.

Indonesia exemplifies the same principle.

After banning exports of unprocessed nickel ore on January 1, 2020, Indonesia became a leading producer and exporter of processed nickel products. The country targeted $21.3bn in foreign investment in mining and processing projects, while the value of its nickel product exports rose from less than $1bn in 2015 to nearly $20bn in 2022. New smelters, refineries, battery-material plants and electric vehicle manufacturing have expanded rapidly, though the boom has also brought environmental and labour concerns.

Africa’s transition minerals require the same strategic intent. If Zambia refines copper, Zimbabwe processes lithium, the Democratic Republic of the Congo produces battery precursors, and South Africa manufactures battery components, engineering firms will expand, chemical industries will grow, and skilled workers will find opportunities at home instead of abroad. Railways will carry higher-value products instead of raw ore, tax revenues will become more stable, and manufacturing will increasingly replace extraction as the main driver of long-term economic growth.

No African country needs to manufacture every component of an electric vehicle or every battery cell. Copper, cobalt, lithium, graphite and manganese are spread across different economies, making regional integration an economic necessity rather than a political aspiration. Shared power systems, transport corridors, research institutions, standards and integrated markets will determine whether Africa exports minerals or manufactures products.

That makes the African Continental Free Trade Area indispensable. Properly implemented, it can turn isolated mineral deposits into regional manufacturing systems by lowering trade barriers and allowing countries to specialise. Together, African economies can develop an integrated industrial base that none could achieve alone.

Africa has lived through too many extractive booms that enriched others first. Copper built industries across Europe and North America while Zambia remained dependent on raw exports. Cocoa supplied Britain’s chocolate manufacturers while Ghana captured only a fraction of the value added.

The global energy transition gives Africa its best opportunity in generations to rewrite that history.

Africa can finally mine, beneficiate and industrialise on its own terms.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Beijing warmly welcomes the peace agreement and memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran, considering it an important step toward de-escalating regional tensions. China supports the diplomatic path to resolving the crisis, based on a clear strategy aimed at protecting its economic and strategic interests. Beijing emphasizes that a permanent ceasefire, the protection of national sovereignty, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and ensuring the safety of international navigation are top priorities. China contributed behind the scenes to shaping the negotiating framework and influencing Tehran to accept the agreement with the United States in order to safeguard its vital interests in the continued flow of Iranian oil. Accordingly, China officially welcomed the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran, affirming that the agreement represents a crucial step toward de-escalating regional tensions. The Chinese diplomatic welcome focused on the key provisions of the agreement, as stated by the spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. These provisions guarantee a comprehensive ceasefire, freedom of navigation, energy security, an end to the naval blockade, and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to global trade and energy supplies. China considers this essential for its energy and economic security. This agreement, along with the nuclear framework and negotiations, marks the conclusion of the first phase, followed by a 30-60 day negotiation period to discuss the Iranian nuclear program (uranium enrichment and the lifting of sanctions). This Chinese announcement came in support of international mediation efforts ahead of the official signing ceremony in Geneva.

The most prominent points welcomed by China in the US-Iranian agreement, according to announcements and follow-up by Chinese diplomatic channels and as included in the key provisions of the memorandum of understanding, were a cessation of military operations; an immediate and permanent ceasefire on all fronts, including the Lebanese front; freedom of navigation through a commitment to end the naval blockade and open the Strait of Hormuz to global trade and energy supplies; and the nuclear framework, with the conclusion of a phase one agreement stipulating that negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program (uranium enrichment and sanctions relief) would take place within a specified timeframe of 30 to 60 days following the signing.

China has played a pivotal, often unacknowledged, role as a diplomatic bridge between Tehran and Washington to protect its strategic and economic interests in the Middle East. The dimensions of China’s behind-the-scenes role include ensuring the flow of energy. Beijing seeks to maintain stability in the Gulf region to guarantee the uninterrupted supply of Iranian oil and to protect its interests and investments in the Belt and Road Initiative. Iran represents a crucial geographical and strategic hub in China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. To this end, Beijing has sought to leverage its strong economic ties and strategic partnership with Tehran to persuade it to make flexible concessions during critical times, while offering support to avoid military escalation. Beijing fears that the collapse of diplomatic channels could lead to a regional war that would jeopardize its extensive investments in the region.

On the other hand, Beijing seeks to counterbalance American influence. China prefers a negotiated framework between Tehran and Washington that limits American unilateral hegemony and positions itself as a responsible international player capable of peacemaking. China’s vision for diplomatic balancing between Washington and Tehran is shaped by several key strategic axes, most importantly (establishing the principle of a political settlement). Here, Beijing consistently emphasizes that dialogue is the only solution to the Iranian crisis, rejecting military escalation that harms the security of navigation and global trade. This is coupled with regional and international networking, where China supports parallel diplomatic efforts, such as Pakistani mediation. Beijing maintains continuous communication with the parties to the crisis to ensure the opening of indirect negotiation channels that prevent a full-scale confrontation and safeguard vital interests. China has maintained the flow of Iranian oil while simultaneously strengthening its extensive economic partnerships with the Gulf states, granting it unique diplomatic weight and influence that Western powers lack. Despite this notable progress, Beijing faces ongoing challenges due to US containment policies. China rejects Washington’s classification of its major technology companies as military entities and threatens retaliatory measures, making Beijing’s attempts to create a strategic balance with the United States an extremely delicate and sensitive process.

Based on the preceding understanding and analysis, we can see how successful Beijing has been in transforming escalating tensions in the Middle East into strategic gains. China has played an active mediating role by supporting diplomatic talks and the memorandum of understanding for peace between Washington and Tehran, thus positioning itself as a responsible international power seeking to establish stability and move away from unilateral hegemony.

US officials indicate Tehran may take days to respond to Trump’s tougher terms on a potential agreement to end the nearly three-month war.

President Donald Trump sought to change several terms of a proposal to end the US-Israel war on Iran, according to media reports in the United States, as a finalised deal remains elusive.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that Trump’s changes involved toughening the deal terms, and the US has sent the new framework back to be considered by Iran, according to officials familiar with the proceedings.

The report said it was not immediately clear what the changes entailed. However, Axios reported Trump wanted to reinforce multiple points of the deal that he felt were important, such as what to do with Iran’s nuclear material.

A senior US official told Axios that Trump was informed it could take three days for Iran to respond.

“They’re literally in caves, and they’re not using email,” the official told Axios.

“There will be a deal. The imminence of it, we’ll see. We’re willing to wait so the president gets what he asks for. It could be a week. It could be less. It could be more. At the turn of the week, we hope to have something,” the official added.

The new tweaks could prolong negotiations between the parties for days before a decision is reached on whether the deal would end the war, which began after the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.

US sources told the AFP news agency that the proposal had been waiting on Trump’s sign-off, but he made no decision after a White House Situation Room meeting on Friday.

Trump has said his priorities for any deal included Iran agreeing to never develop nuclear weapons and the reopening of the blockaded Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply transits.

On Saturday, the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters reasserted the country’s control over the strait, warning that foreign commercial and military vessels would be targeted if they did not comply with regulations governing passage through the strategic waterway.

Tehran has also said repeatedly that it does not intend to build nuclear weapons. In March 2025, Tulsi Gabbard, the former US director of national intelligence, testified to Congress that Washington “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon”.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman has invoked ancient Persia’s victory in the face of a failed invasion by the Roman Empire. The post suggests the US has been forced to make concessions in a deal to end its war on Iran on Tehran’s terms.

President Trump, it’s well known, is into gold. Every day brings new evidence that he’s thoroughly enjoying the “golden age” he pronounced in his inaugural address — as few other Americans are — with stock trades, crypto profiteering and much more, even a new taxpayer-financed slush fund to reward his allies.

As for me, I’ve gone into silver. That is, I constantly look for the silver linings in Trump’s heinous acts.

One silver lining, of course, is his cratering job-approval numbers in the polls, especially among the young and Latino voters who made his reelection possible. But here’s another: By his humiliating failure to bring Iran to heel, nearly three months after starting a war that he said would last weeks at most, Trump has brought new, more positive attention to what he again this week derided as “Barack Hussein Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.” (The emphasis on “Hussein” is Trump’s, always.)

The president, along with his Republican cheerleaders, counts his first-term abrogation of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as a signature achievement. This week, yet again, he falsely claimed that had he not done so, Iran would have a nuclear weapon. In fact, his action in 2018 taking the United States out of the multinational deal subsequently led to Iran’s rebuilding of its nuclear program, the emboldening of the Iranian hard-liners now in power and the Middle East morass in which the United States is now mired.

That quagmire has left Trump seeming desperate for a deal — almost certainly a worse deal than the one Obama struck. Call it JCPOA Lite.

If he were able to get Iran’s sign-off on the sort of detailed, restrictive agreement that Obama and other world leaders won 11 years ago, he’d be trumpeting himself as the world’s greatest dealmaker. (He does that anyway, but his record proves otherwise.) Instead, by his own failure to date, Trump has invited reconsideration of the very agreement he decried as the “worst deal ever” on his march to election and reelection.

No sooner was the 2015 deal signed than Trump and Republicans succeeded in defining it as a giveaway to Iran that assured, not hindered, its development of a nuclear weapon to threaten Israel and the world. Opponents condemned the agreement for not addressing Iran’s other threats, notably its support for militant proxies throughout the Mideast. Some Democrats, notably Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, were among the foes. Other Democrats, cowed by opposition to the agreement by Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government and pro-Israel lobbyists, were all but mute in the pact’s defense.

Now some Democrats are belatedly finding their voice (and, post-Gaza, some willingness to defy Israel). Along with nonpartisan experts, those Democrats are drawing comparisons between the 2015 agreement, flawed yet successful, and Trump’s promised yet ever-elusive alternative. What’s ironic for Israel and Netanyahu, still implacably against negotiating with Tehran, is that they could end up, under Trump, with a nuclear deal that gives Iran more leeway than the hated JCPOA did.

As Americans are being reminded, the 2015 deal wasn’t just between Iran and Obama, as Trump has long suggested; other signatories were China, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and the 27-nation European Union. Reconstituting that group would be all but impossible today.

The pact’s 159 highly technical pages and five appendices — a far cry from the short-lived one-pager that Trump officials teased earlier this month — required Iran for 15 years to limit its nuclear program to civilian purposes, forfeit more than 97% of its enriched uranium and submit to intrusive monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure compliance. In return, Iran gradually got relief from some, but not all, international economic sanctions and access to Iranian funds that were frozen after the 1979 Islamic revolution. Presumably, after 15 years, the agreement would have been extended somehow.

By all accounts, including those of Trump’s first-term intelligence and national security officials, Iran was complying when he abandoned the deal. Its “breakout time” for building a nuclear weapon was about a year — time enough for the world to intervene — instead of two to three months. Now, though the president boasts he barred Iran from having that weapon by breaking the Iran nuclear deal, he incessantly tells Americans that he went to war against Iran on Feb. 28 because it was on the brink of a bomb — never mind that he also said he had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program last summer, a program that was in a well-monitored box until he first took office.

If you’re confused, you’re paying attention.

A month ago, Trump posted online that he was close to a deal “FAR BETTER” than the 2015 accord. “I am under no pressure whatsoever, ⁠although, it will all happen, relatively quickly!” To several reporters, he suggested he in fact had a deal and that Iran had agreed both to suspend its nuclear activities and to forfeit all of its enriched, near-weapons-grade uranium.

Preposterous claims, given Iran’s current government, and Tehran promptly denied them. It was a sign of Trump’s squandered credibility that few, if anyone, believed him in the first place. Nor have folks believed his more recent talk of imminent success; oil markets, too, have learned not to trust the president, as prices at the pumps attest.

On Tuesday at the White House, amid a noisy tour of the billion-dollar-ballroom construction site, Trump told reporters he’d been “an hour away” from striking Iran again that very day but Mideast leaders asked for more time for negotiations.

Don’t hold your breath.

But for the tragic consequences, Obama might be enjoying some justifiable schadenfreude about Trump’s travails.

“We pulled it off without firing a missile. We got 97% of the enriched uranium out,” he told Stephen Colbert in an interview last week. Both U.S. and Israeli intelligence agreed that Iran was abiding by the nuclear limits, Obama added, “and we didn’t have to kill a whole bunch of people or shut down the Strait of Hormuz.”

That sure doesn’t sound like the “worst deal ever.” It wasn’t.

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Thousand-dollar tickets and hundreds of dollars in fees shocked some hopeful Olympic fans this month, but they did not keep LA28 from boasting strong sales in the committee’s first ticket drop.

LA28 announced Thursday that it sold more than 4 million Olympic tickets during the first ticket drop. The private organizing committee will have a second ticket drop in August with “refreshed inventory across all Olympic sports at a range of price points.”

But after the popularity of the first purchasing period, many of the lower-priced tickets have already been scooped up.

LA28 said roughly half of the total 1 million $28 tickets were sold during the locals presale, which was limited to people living near venue cities in Southern California and Oklahoma City.

The average price per Olympic ticket is less than $200, which includes a mandatory 24% service fee, and LA28 said about 75% of all tickets, including final events, will be under $400. The premier seats at high-demand events command more than $1,000 per ticket, but the highest priced categories make up about 5% of the total ticket inventory.

Artistic gymnastics sold out the quickest in Drop 1. Four Olympic sports — flag football, lacrosse, softball and squash — sold all their available inventory for the first drop. After five days of local presale, global ticket sales opened and drew fans from 85 countries and all 50 states and U.S. territories. The largest international sales came from the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico and Japan.

For the first female-majority Olympic Games, LA28 reported that women’s Olympic sessions outsold men’s 93% to 88% during the first drop.

“The response to our initial on-sale was nothing short of historic. Fans from near and far have spoken: the world wants to be part of the LA28 Games,” LA28 chief executive officer Reynold Hoover said in a statement. “The success of Drop 1 is about more than momentum — it reflects LA28’s commitment to delivering a fiscally responsible Games that create a lasting legacy for Los Angeles and its communities.”

Drop 2, which will begin in August, will have additional tickets across all Olympic sports, including those that may have sold out during the first purchasing windows. The registration period for Drop 2 opened Thursday at tickets.la28.org and will continue until July 22. Fans who registered for the first drop of tickets but did not receive a time slot and fans who did not buy their maximum 12 general ticket allotment will automatically be entered into the random lottery Drop 2. The new registration period is only required for anybody who did not sign up for the initial drop.

Fans are still limited to 12 Olympic tickets and up to 12 soccer tickets that don’t count toward the general maximum. There is a four ticket per ceremony limit for the opening and closing ceremony that count toward the 12-ticket maximum, which is cumulative across all LA28 presales and ticket drops.

LA28 will have multiple ticket drops with assigned purchasing time slots before ticket sales move to a first-come, first-served format closer to the Games, which open on July 14, 2028. LA28 began its ticketing process earlier than most other Olympic Games with tickets going on sale more than two years in advance of the opening ceremony. The early timeline has created excitement for the first Summer Olympics in the United States since Atlanta 1996, but also prompted concerns about scheduling. Fans clamored for tickets with little information about which teams or athletes would be competing in most sessions.

Tickets are not refundable, but fans can opt for verified resale when LA28 launches its official resale system in 2027. AXS and Eventim is the official secondary ticket marketplace of the LA28 Games and Ticketmaster and Sports Illustrated Tickets have also signed on as additional verified resale platforms.

LA28 will have 14 million tickets available for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which would eclipse the record of 12 million tickets sold for the Paris Games. Paris 2024 sold an about 9.5 million tickets for the Olympics, but used a different ticket system than LA28. For Paris, 3.5 million tickets were sold during the first phase, during which fans were required to buy tickets to at least three different sports instead of the option for single-event tickets available during LA28’s Drop 1 process.

Tickets for the 2028 Paralympics, which will be the first in L.A.’s history, will go on sale in 2027. Ticket sales and hospitality are expected to cover about $2.5 billion of LA28’s expected $7.1 billion budget for the first Games in L.A. in more than 40 years.

United States President Donald Trump has said a nuclear agreement currently being negotiated with Iran will be “far better” than the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which he withdrew from in 2018 during his first term in office.

The original 2015 accord took roughly two years of negotiations to reach and involved hundreds of specialists across technical and legal fields, including multiple US experts. Under it, Iran agreed to restrict the enrichment of uranium and to subject itself to inspections in exchange for the relaxation of sanctions.

But Trump took the US out of that pact, calling it the “worst deal ever”. Before the initial US-Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February, the US had made new demands – including additional restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear programme, the restriction of its ballistic missiles programme and an end to its support for regional armed groups, primarily in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.

Trump’s latest remarks come amid growing uncertainty about whether a second round of talks will proceed in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, as a two-week ceasefire between the US-Israel and Iran approaches the end in just a day.

So, what was the JCPOA, and how did it compare to Trump’s new demands?

What was the JCPOA?

On July 14, 2015, Iran reached an agreement with the European Union and six major powers – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the US, and Germany – under which these states would roll back international economic sanctions and allow Iran greater participation in the global economy.

In return, Tehran committed to limiting activities that could be used to produce a nuclear weapon.

These included reducing its stockpile of enriched uranium by about 98 percent, to less than 300kg (660lb), and capping uranium enrichment at 3.67 percent – far below weapons-grade of 90 percent, but high enough for civilian purposes such as power generation.

Before the JCPOA, Iran operated roughly 20,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges. Under the deal, that number was cut to a maximum of 6,104, and only older-generation machines confined to two facilities, which were subject to international monitoring.

Centrifuges are machines which spin to increase the concentration of the uranium-235 isotope – enrichment – in uranium, a key step towards potential bomb-making.

The deal also redesigned Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor to prevent plutonium production and introduced one of the most intrusive inspection regimes ever implemented by the global nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In exchange, Iran received relief from international sanctions which had severely damaged its economy. Billions of dollars in frozen assets were released, and restrictions on oil exports and banking were eased.

The deal came to halt when Trump formally withdrew Washington from the nuclear deal in 2018, a move widely criticised domestically and by foreign allies, and despite the IAEA saying Iran had complied with the agreement up to that point.

“The Iranian regime supports terrorism and exports violence, bloodshed and chaos across the Middle East. That is why we must put an end to Iran’s continued aggression and nuclear ambitions. They have not lived up to the spirit of their agreement,” he said in October 2017.

He reimposed crippling economic sanctions on Tehran as part of his “maximum pressure” tactic. These targeted Iran’s oil exports, as well as its shipping sector, banking system and other key industries.

The goal was to force Iran back to the negotiating table to agree to a new deal, which also included a discussion about Tehran’s missile capabilities, further curbs on enrichment and more scrutiny of its nuclear programme.

What has happened to Iran’s nuclear programme since the JCPOA?

During the JCPOA period, Iran’s nuclear programme was tightly constrained and heavily monitored. The IAEA repeatedly verified that Iran was complying with the deal’s terms, including one year after Trump announced the US’s withdrawal from the agreement.

Starting in mid-2019, however, Iran began incrementally breaching the deal’s limits, exceeding caps on uranium stockpiles and enrichment levels.

In November 2024, Iran said it would activate “new and advanced” centrifuges. The IAEA confirmed that Tehran had informed the nuclear watchdog that it planned to install more than 6,000 new centrifuges to enrich uranium.

In December 2024, the IAEA said Iran was rapidly enriching uranium to 60 percent purity, moving closer to the 90 percent threshold needed for weapons-grade material. Most recently, in 2025, the IAEA estimated that Iran had 440kg (970lb) of 60-percent enriched uranium.

What are Trump’s latest demands for Iran’s nuclear programme?

The US and its ally, Israel, are pushing Iran to agree to zero uranium enrichment and have accused Iran of working towards building a nuclear weapon, while providing no evidence for their claims.

They also want Iran’s estimated 440kg stock of 60pc enriched uranium to be removed from Iran. While that is below weapons-grade, it is the point at which it becomes much faster to achieve the 90 percent enrichment needed for atomic weapons production.

Iran has insisted its enrichment effort is for civilian purposes only. It is a signatory to the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

In March 2025, Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence, testified to Congress that the US “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon”.

On Sunday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in a strongly worded statement, said Trump had no right to ⁠⁠”deprive” Iran of its nuclear ⁠⁠rights.

What else is Trump asking for?

Restrictions on ballistic missiles

Before the US-Israel war on Iran began, Tehran had always insisted negotiations should be exclusively focused on Iran’s nuclear programme.

US and Israeli demands, however, extended beyond that. Just before the war began, Washington and Israel demanded severe restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile programme.

Analysts say this demand was at least partly triggered by the fact that several Iranian missiles had breached Israel’s much-vaunted “Iron Dome” defence system during the 12-day war between the two countries in June last year. While Israel suffered only a handful of casualties, it is understood to have been alarmed.

For his part, Trump has repeatedly warned, without evidence, about the dangers of Iran’s long-range missiles, claiming Iran is producing them “in very high numbers” and they could “overwhelm the Iron Dome”.

Iran has said its right to maintain missile capabilities is non-negotiable. The JCPOA did not put any limits on the development of ballistic missiles.

However, a United Nations resolution made when adopting the nuclear agreement in July 2015 did stipulate that Iran could not “undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons”.

Ending support for proxy groups

The US and Israel have also demanded that Iran stop supporting its non-state allies across the Middle East, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and a number of groups in Iraq. Together, these groups are referred to as Iran’s “axis of resistance”.

In May last year, Trump said Tehran “must stop sponsoring terror, halt its bloody proxy wars, and permanently and verifiably cease pursuit of nuclear weapons”, during a GCC meeting in Riyadh.

Three days before the war on Iran began in February, during his State of the Union address to Congress, Trump accused Iran and “its murderous proxies” of spreading “nothing but terrorism and death and hate”.

Iran has refused to enter a dialogue about limiting its support for these armed groups.

Can Trump really get a new deal that is ‘much better’ than the JCPOA?

According to Andreas Kreig, associate professor of Security Studies at King’s College, London, Trump is more likely to secure a new deal that closely resembles the JCPOA, with “some form of restrictions on enrichment, possibly with a sunset clause, and international supervision”.

“Iran might get access to frozen assets and lifted sanctions much quicker than under the JCPOA, as it will not agree to a long drawn-out, gradual lifting of sanctions,” Krieg pointed out.

However, he warned that the political landscape in Tehran has hardened. “Iran now is a far more hardline and less pragmatic player that will play hardball at every junction. Trump cannot count on any goodwill in Tehran,” he said.

“The IRGC is now firmly in charge… with likely new powerful and tested levers such as the Strait of Hormuz,” he said, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which operates as a parallel elite military force to the army and has a great deal of political and economic power in Iran. It is a constitutionally recognised part of the Iranian military and answers directly to the supreme leader.

Overall, Krieg stressed, the US-Israel war on Iran “leaves the world worse off than had Trump stuck to the JCPOA”, even if a new compromise is eventually reached.

Moreover, since the revocation of the JCPOA, the US and Israel have waged two wars on Iran, including the current one. The 12-day war in June last year included attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and killed more than 1,000 people.

Attacks on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure have continued since the latest war began on February 28, including on the Natanz enrichment facility, Isfahan nuclear complex, Arak heavy water reactor, and the Bushehr nuclear power plant.

Nevertheless, King’s College’s Krieg said there is still room for a negotiated outcome if Tehran and Washington scale back their demands.

“Both sides can compromise on enrichment thresholds, and on temporary moratoriums on enrichments. But Iran will not surrender its sovereignty to enrich altogether, and the Trump administration will have to meet them halfway,” he said.

“While the Iranians will commit on paper not to develop a nuclear weapon, they will want to keep R&D [research and development] in this space alive.”

Economic incentives will be central, he added. “Equally, Iran would want to get immediate access to capital and liquidity. Here, the Trump administration is already willing to compromise.”