U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump has “a lot of tools” to ensure that the Iranian regime doesn’t acquire nuclear weapons, amid indirect talks between Washington and Tehran and an American military buildup in the Middle East.
The vice president spoke to Fox News on the day that a second round of U.S.-Iran negotiations in Geneva took place, with the Iranians signaling progress.
Vance said that Washington has set red lines in nuclear negotiations with Iran and that Trump retains military options if diplomacy fails.
He said he spoke that morning with Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner about ongoing negotiations, describing the talks as mixed. “In some ways it went well,” Vance said, noting the two sides agreed to meet again, but adding that Iran had not yet acknowledged the administration’s core demands.
Vance said preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon was the administration’s primary objective, warning that a nuclear-armed Iran could trigger proliferation across the region. “You can’t have people like that have the most dangerous weapon known to man,” he said.
Asked whether regime change was on the table, Vance did not rule it out, saying Trump “takes a much different approach to America’s national security” than his predecessors and is “much more willing to act aggressively” to defend U.S. interests.
Vance also said the administration wants Iran to cease its support for terrorist proxies and called Iran “one of the world’s largest state sponsors of terrorism,” but said the nuclear question remained the administration’s foremost concern.
“The president has a lot of tools in the toolkit,” Vance said. “He has a lot of options to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Iranian FM says progress made in talks
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that progress was made in the U.S.-Iran talks in Geneva on Tuesday.
“Different ideas have been presented, these ideas have been seriously discussed, ultimately we’ve been able to reach a general agreement on some guiding principles,” he told Iranian media, according to Reuters.
An American official told the news agency that Iran has agreed to submit detailed proposals within two weeks aimed at narrowing differences in the negotiations, describing the talks as productive but incomplete.
“Progress was made, but there are still a lot of details to discuss,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Witkoff and Kushner led the American side of the negotiating team with Aragchi leading the Iranian side. Oman has mediated both rounds, with the first round having taken place in Muscat.
“Today’s indirect negotiations between The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America in Geneva concluded with good progress towards identifying common goals and relevant technical issues,” Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi wrote on X.
Today’s indirect negotiations between The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America in Geneva concluded with good progress towards identifying common goals and relevant technical issues. The spirit of our meetings was constructive. Together we made serious…
— Badr Albusaidi - بدر البوسعيدي (@badralbusaidi) February 17, 2026
“The spirit of our meetings was constructive. Together we made serious efforts to define a number of guiding principles for a final deal. The contribution of the IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi was much appreciated. Much work is yet to be done, and the parties left with clear next steps before the next meeting,” he said.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to redeploy naval and aerial forces to the Middle East region, with the USS Gerald R. Ford on its way. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched naval drills this week in the Strait of Hormuz and surrounding waterways.
