President Donald Trump has delayed signing off on the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding hammered out by his envoys, instructing his negotiators to extract additional concessions on Tehran’s nuclear program before he commits to the deal, Axios reported Sunday, citing a senior administration official and a second U.S. source briefed on the talks.

Trump conveyed the demands during a Situation Room meeting on Friday, opening a fresh round of back-and-forth between Washington and Tehran that administration officials told Axios could stretch for several days. The president wants the deal and still expects to finalize it, the officials said, but is pressing his team to tighten the language governing Iran’s enriched uranium and the timetable for handing it over.

In its current form, the draft memorandum commits Iran to forgoing the pursuit of a nuclear weapon but contains no specific concessions beyond that pledge. It establishes a 60-day window during which the two sides would negotiate the actual nuclear restrictions and corresponding U.S. sanctions relief, with the disposition of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile and limits on further enrichment slated as the lead items.

Trump wants that section rewritten. “It’s more specifics about how the U.S. gets the material and the timing,” the senior administration official told Axios, referring to the enriched uranium. The second source said Trump also wants changes to the language governing the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow chokepoint through which a large share of global oil shipments flow.

A White House official told reporters after the Friday meeting that Trump would only finalize an agreement that satisfies his redlines and ensures Iran cannot acquire a nuclear weapon. Iranian officials, speaking to state media, said Tehran has not yet signed off on the final text either, even as two U.S. officials had asserted earlier in the week that Iran was prepared to sign and the holdup was on the American side.

The senior administration official told Axios that any response from the Iranian side will take time. “They’re literally in caves and they’re not using email,” the official said, estimating the turnaround at roughly three days. The official added that the administration is prepared to wait until Trump’s conditions are met, with the next round potentially closing by the end of the coming week.

Iranian state media has reported that a deal is close but not yet finalized, and has claimed that Iran would receive billions in previously frozen funds as part of any final agreement. The White House has denied that characterization. A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment, according to Axios.

The Axios reporting is the first detailed glimpse into Trump’s hesitation over an agreement his own negotiators, including envoy Steve Witkoff, presented to him as essentially complete. It also underscores how narrow the actual current commitments in the draft are, with the document functioning largely as a framework for future talks rather than a binding curb on Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

The negotiations are unfolding against the backdrop of an April Trump-declared ceasefire that ended the U.S.-Israeli air campaign against Iranian nuclear and missile infrastructure without achieving the central public war aims of dismantling Tehran’s nuclear program, gutting its missile arsenal or precipitating regime change. CNN reported separately Sunday that Iranian crews have already reopened 50 of 69 tunnel entrances at 18 underground missile bases struck during the war, restoring access to an estimated 1,000-missile stockpile.

Israeli officials have not publicly weighed in on the latest holdup but have made clear throughout the negotiations that any final agreement that leaves enriched uranium on Iranian soil or extends Tehran’s runway toward a weapon will be unacceptable to Jerusalem.

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