Trump says preference is to solve Iran tensions through diplomacy

United States President Donald Trump has told Congress that he would prefer to resolve differences with Tehran through diplomacy, while laying out his case for potential attacks on Iran, which he claimed was seeking to develop missiles that could strike the US mainland.

In comments made during his annual State of the Union address to a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives on Tuesday, Trump struck a belligerent tone against Iran, accusing it of working to rebuild its nuclear program that was hit by US strikes last year.
Trump has repeatedly said those sites were obliterated, a claim experts have disputed.

“We wiped it out and they want to start all over again. And they’re at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions,” Trump said, as he broached the subject of potential military action against Iran about 90 minutes into his record-length speech.

“We are in negotiations with them. They want to make a deal, but we haven’t heard those secret words: ‘We will never have a nuclear weapon.’”

Trump said his “preference” was “to solve this problem through diplomacy, but one thing is certain: I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon.

“Can’t let that happen,” he added.Trump said that after the US attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites in June 2025, “they were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons programme, in particular, nuclear weapons – yet they continue.”

Iran has insisted for years that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes only. Neither US intelligence nor the UN’s nuclear watchdog found any evidence last year that Iran was pursuing atomic weapons.