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The US-China deal the world actually needs
The architects of the atomic bomb warned against the arms race and proposed an alternative. Eighty years on, that framework still stands.
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US President Donald Trump (right) speaking with Chinese President Xi Jinping after a visit to the Zhongnanhai Garden in Beijing, China, on May 15.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Charles Oppenheimer
Amid headlines of trade, technology and strategic stability, US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed during a two-day summit in Beijing that Iran should not have nuclear weapons.
Pessimists will say that any nuclear deal between China and the US is impossible. But there is one that these nations could set in motion – and that could both solve the current Iran impasse and set the stage for far more ambitious plans Mr Trump began his current term with.
“I think... denuclearisation is a very... big aim,” Mr Trump said in August 2025, “but Russia is willing to do it, and I think China is going to be willing to do it, too. We can’t let nuclear weapons proliferate. We have to stop nuclear weapons. The power is too great.”
The good news: We already have the tools to get this done, if we look to history to save our future.
Exactly 80 years ago in 1946, before the Soviet Union had a single warhead, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer – who led the Manhattan Project behind the atomic bomb – and the Acheson-Lilienthal Committee were commissioned to study how to prevent nuclear warfare.
The advice they gave still stands: The major world powers at the time (the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain) should cooperate on jointly monitoring and controlling fissionable material – essential for generating nuclear power – before an arms race started.
If any non-nuclear country began enriching uranium for weapons, diplomatic pressure followed by military force should be used to stop it. The plan combined hard military power with international cooperation, with incentives focused on the peaceful uses of nuclear technology.
In hindsight, this framework could have worked, as many of its components exist in the world today.
But at the time, we plunged into a Cold War and a nuclear arms race instead – precisely the outcome the Committee had warned against, and a threat that haunts us to this day.
Dr Oppenheimer and the Committee urged an end to all war, not a race to the false hope of nuclear supremacy. You cannot achieve safety by building a bigger pile of nuclear weapons. If your enemy has just one to launch at you, there is no effective defence.
Yet, at the peak of the Cold War, the world had more than 70,000 nuclear weapons, and we came within minutes of using them on more than one occasion.
What has saved us, so far, is a combination of restraint and the very cooperation which Dr Oppenheimer and team had prescribed.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established in 1957 and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entered into force in 1970. Defying expectations, the United States and Soviet Union even agreed to have the equivalent of 20,000 Soviet nuclear weapons be “downblended” into fuel to be used by American power plants between 1993 and 2013.
This unprecedented deal, dubbed “Megatons to Megawatts”, translated into approximately 10 per cent of US electricity consumption. The policy and technical blueprints exist for peacefully converting weapon ambitions into energy.
Today, the world’s nuclear arsenals have shrunk from 70,000 to roughly 12,000, but the danger of use is once again increasing. So, too, is the urgency for solutions that address the global energy consumption crisis.
Drawing lessons from previous generations, here are four reasons why a Trump-Xi deal can transform Iran’s nuclear fuel from a military target into a crucial seed of peace.
We’ve already agreed to this. The United States, China, Russia and Iran are signatories to the NPT and members of the IAEA. Iran is currently violating the treaty by pushing towards weapons-grade enriched material. If it stops, the nuclear-armed countries and the IAEA are obligated to help Iran access peaceful nuclear technology – energy, medicine, scientific development. This would not be a concession to Iran – everyone has already said yes.
The US and China can pave the way. An agreement solely between Washington and Tehran is not the only way to end that war. Instead, the United States and China could draft their own agreement, and invite Russia to join. Structured as a jointly funded, dedicated IAEA programme to verifiably downblend Iran’s weapons-grade material into reactor fuel, they would also jointly deliver a substantial civil nuclear power programme in Iran.
Turn crisis into opportunity. Every nation watching draws a useful conclusion: Cooperation with the international nuclear framework delivers real benefits. Secret weapons enrichment delivers air strikes and sanctions. Within two decades, Iran would have abundant electricity, medical isotopes and economic development from civil nuclear power. That demonstration effect is worth more than any single arms control agreement, because it changes the incentive structure for every country that comes after.
The NPT Review Conference is taking place in New York. Against the backdrop of the US-China summit in Beijing, representatives from around the world have been in New York determining the future of the NPT during its once-every-five-years cycle. Mr Trump has often declared his role as a “peacemaker”. He could achieve his ambitions by proving that trading war for peace is possible, at the very moment this crucial treaty is under discussion.
We must have the courage to implement obligations that all parties have already signed. All that is required is the choice to use the most powerful science mankind has ever harnessed, not as a threat to civilisation but as the closest thing we have to a guarantee of its survival.
President Trump has returned from China. Now the real work begins.
Charles Oppenheimer is founder and CEO of the start-up Oppenheimer Energy, focused on nuclear energy deployment, and co-leads the non-profit Oppenheimer Project, which supports J. Robert Oppenheimer’s vision of international cooperation and peaceful uses of nuclear technology.
