- Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly played a key role in the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal, which dictated that Iran would reduce the number of centrifuge machines that could enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb from nearly 20,000 to a total of 6,104 — with allowance to expand after a decade — in exchange for the U.S. and other countries lifting some sanctions.
- The Iran Nuclear Deal did not directly supply Iran with uranium, but it did regulate the country's uranium enrichment program at a time when others, including the U.N. Security Council, were calling for its suspension. (The U.N. Security Council later unanimously endorsed the Iran Nuclear Deal.)
- According to White House news briefs from 2016, Iran had by then shipped 25,000 pounds of enriched uranium out of the country in accordance with the terms of the deal.
As the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran in March 2026, speculation regarding Iran's nuclear capabilities led to pointed fingers at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who reportedly played a key role in the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal that dictated regulations for Iran's uranium enrichment program.
Some people claimed Clinton directly supplied Iran with uranium because the Iran Nuclear Deal placed constraints on the country's uranium program at a time when others, including the U.N. Security Council, were calling for its total suspension. For example, one post from March 2 read (archived):
REMEMBER HOW WE GOT HERE!
HILLARY CLINTON SUPPLIED IRAN WITH URANIUM TO ENRICH THEIR NUCLEAR PROGRAM.
Similar iterations of the rumor about Clinton have circulated during previous spikes in hostilities.
Snopes previously fact-checked a separate claim that former President Joe Biden unfroze $16 billion in funds for Iran as well as a rumor that Clinton gave uranium to Russia in exchange for Clinton Foundation donations.
Below, we focus on the claim that she supplied Iran with uranium to enrich their nuclear program. In short, while her reported key role in the deal's formation did result in tighter constraints on Iran's enrichment capabilities (as opposed to total suspension of the program), this did not equate to her directly supplying Iran with uranium. Snopes contacted Clinton's office for comment on the claim and will update this story if we receive a response.
What were the terms of the deal?
The deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was an agreement between China, France, Germany, Russia, the U.K., the U.S., the EU and Iran. It came into effect in October 2015 and aimed to ensure that Iran's nuclear program was exclusively peaceful.
It dictated (among other stipulations) that Iran would
The process of uranium enrichment increases the concentration of U-235, an isotope that can sustain a nuclear chain reaction, as shown in the graphic below.
(Getty Images)
"Before the deal, Iran was steadily increasing its stockpile of enriched uranium, enough for up to 10 nuclear bombs," former President Barack Obama said during a news conference in 2016. "Today, more than 98% of that stockpile has been shipped out of Iran, meaning Iran now doesn't have enough material for even one bomb."
According to a White House brief from that same time, between October 2015 and January 2016, Iran had shipped 25,000 pounds of enriched uranium out of the country in accordance with the terms of the deal.
Beginning in 2006, the U.N. Security Council called on Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment, but it endorsed the Iran Nuclear Deal on July 20, 2015.
What was Hillary Clinton's role in forming the deal?
In September 2015, about two and a half years after Clinton stepped down from her role in Obama's administration, The Wall Street Journal published a story (archived) that claimed she was a "key player" in the lead-up to the decision that Iran would constrain its uranium enrichment to peaceful purposes in exchange for the U.S. and others lifting some sanctions.
The story posited that Clinton personally helped open the door to "a dramatic shift in U.S. policy toward Iran: an acceptance that Tehran would maintain at least some capacity to produce nuclear fuel, according to current and former U.S. officials."
"She recognized the difficulty of reaching a solution with zero enrichment," Jake Sullivan, Clinton's top foreign policy aide at the time, reportedly said to the Journal.
Why did Hillary Clinton advocate regulating Iran's enrichment program instead of suspending it?
In her own words regarding the agreement, Clinton said in 2019, four years after the deal went through: "Diplomacy is not the pursuit of perfection. It is the balancing of risk." She wrote on X that while the deal "was not perfect ... it achieved its fundamental mission of blocking every pathway for Iran to get a bomb."
Upon the announcement of the deal in July 2015, Clinton delivered a statement on her position, in which she defended the United States' compromise to regulate Iran's uranium enrichment capabilities, arguing that if Iran did not comply with the terms of the agreement, the United States' response would be "immediate and decisive — starting with the return of sanctions but taking no options off the table, including, if necessary, our military options."
A policy aide quoted anonymously in the Wall Street Journal story reportedly said, "By the time she left [her role as secretary of state], her position was: 'I'm not an absolute firm hard 'no' on enrichment … Let's see how it unfolds and reserve judgment on whether we'd accept enrichment until a later date.'" Because it came from an anonymous source, it wasn't possible for Snopes to independently verify this statement.
In 2018, just three years after the deal went into effect, President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement.
In the series of X posts (archived) from 2019, Clinton wrote, "By withdrawing from the deal, the administration has effectively broken up the international coalition that was unified in constraining Iran, and now Iran is once again increasing its nuclear capability."
Where does that leave Iran's uranium stockpile in March 2026?
Rafael Mariano Grossi, who heads the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, reportedly told NBC News on March 3 that his organization lost its "continuity of knowledge" about the uranium after the U.S. launched strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities during the Iran-Israel conflict in June 2025. The strikes
Before June 2025, however,
He noted that this doesn't mean Iran's uranium was being used to develop a weapon. Technically, Iran is a "non-nuclear weapon State" and a signatory to the cornerstone treaty preventing nuclear weapon development worldwide:
In the November 2025 report, the International Atomic Energy Agency raised "serious concern" over the agency's inability to verify Iran's uranium stockpile (Subsection 33, Page 7):
The quantity of HEU [High Enriched Uranium] produced and accumulated by Iran, the only NPT non-nuclear-weapon State to have done so, which remains in Iran without the Agency being able to verify it since mid-June 2025, is a matter of serious concern and a matter of compliance with the NPT Safeguards Agreement. The Agency's lack of access to this nuclear material in Iran for five months means that its verification – according to standard safeguards practice – is long overdue.
In short, the international community does not know, as of this writing, how much enriched uranium Iran has stockpiled — or whether it has plans to weaponize it.