President Donald Trump on Monday proposed that the “Atomic Energy Commission” could help oversee the destruction of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile as he looks to negotiate an end to his unpopular war with the country.
But there’s one apparent error with the proposal: the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission was dissolved over half a century ago.
“This is getting utterly surreal!” wrote Erik Townsend, one of several critics on X who flagged the president’s mention of the defunct agency on his Truth Social platform.
Earlier in the day, Trump pitched on social media that the stockpile of what he calls “nuclear dust” — a sticking point in the talks to bring the conflict to a close and reopen the Strait of Hormuz — be “immediately turned over to the United States to be brought home and destroyed.”
He laid out other alternatives, as well: the enriched uranium could also be “destroyed in place” in conjunction and coordination with Iran or it could be destroyed “at another acceptable location, with the Atomic Energy Commission, or its equivalent, being witness to this process and event.”
Townsend noted that both Pakistan and Israel currently have an “Atomic Energy Commission” but neither “make sense” in the context of Trump’s pitch.
The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, formed in 1946 under President Harry Truman, was tasked with developing and regulating nuclear technology.
After the AEC was dissolved in 1975, its duties were split between two agencies: the Energy Research and Development Administration (which merged with the Federal Energy Administration in 1977 to make the Department of Energy) and the still-active Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Neither the AEC nor its successors, however, have typically been involved in such a mission to disarm a nation of its nuclear material.
Others on X wondered whether Trump was referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency, a body that would monitor Iran’s compliance with an international agreement to dispose of its stockpile.
The White House did not immediately return a HuffPost request for comment.