Trump finally sealed his deal with Iran. Negotiations on the “final” agreement now begin.

“It wasn’t easy.”

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That’s the verdict of President Donald Trump, who finally signed a deal to end the war in Iran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

World powers hope the 14-point deal will bring some relief to the international economy, which is still suffering from the knock-on effects of Iran’s throttling of the vital waterway.

Yet the conclusion of a long and tense period of talks will only herald another. The details of a “final” US-Iran deal, likely even thornier, are yet to be discussed during 60 days of negotiations between Washington and Tehran, which begin on Friday in the Swiss Alps.

Iran has called the interim deal a victory, while critics and many independent experts have said the terms heavily favor Tehran. Even Trump, while claiming that the deal was “very strong,” seemed to admit that he signed it in order to avoid an “economic catastrophe” and a “depression” of the world.

Speaking at the G7 summit in France, Trump acknowledged that his deal had failed to achieve some of its original war goals, including ending Iran’s ballistic missile program, before putting pen to paper on Wednesday. He signed the agreement at the Palace of Versailles, where Germany’s capitulation was sealed, ending World War I in 1918.

“What the president has accomplished on the battlefield and at the negotiating table is nothing short of remarkable and will strengthen American security for many years to come,” said White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales.

Trump’s political opponents did not hold back.

“Trump didn’t get peace through strength, he got his reward through weakness,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday. “The Americans got almost nothing of what we wanted and needed, and Trump gave up the store. The Iranians took him to the cleaners.”

Trump and his allies had pilloried and ultimately broken President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal, in part because it did not address Iran’s missile arsenal. But Trump appeared to defend Tehran’s right to possess such weapons after the issue was left out of his deal.

If other countries have ballistic missiles, “it’s a little unfair for Iran not to have them,” Trump told reporters in France. “If Saudi Arabia and Qatar all have them, in relative proportion, I think it’s OK.”

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Trump asked if he would agree to a civilian nuclear program in Iran

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The remark was cited approvingly by state-controlled news agencies in Tehran, where the deal was widely presented as a triumph for Iranian negotiators.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the deal showed how Iran “failed to allow America and Israel to achieve” the “goals they set at the start of the war,” according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

“The Iranians are not giving up the right to self-defense in their country, but we hope that under the final agreement they will not be able to build the type of missiles that could threaten the entire world,” Vice President JD Vance said Thursday during a White House press briefing. “You cannot tell a country, whether it is Israel or Iran, that it is not allowed to defend itself.”

The White House has not officially released the text of the agreement, which was distributed to media outlets including NBC News by a senior U.S. official who said its release was briefly delayed at Iran’s request.

While Obama’s 18-page deal in 2015 covered only Iran’s nuclear program, Trump’s deal, although only two pages long, addresses a host of other topics, from shipping to the unfreezing of Iranian assets and, controversially, funds for rebuilding the Islamic Republic.

Although Israel is not a direct party to the deal, the text also specifies that fighting must also stop in Lebanon, where a continuing air and ground attack by Israel has targeted the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group. Trump reiterated this point in an article on Truth Social on Thursday.

“We hope for a complete ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon, Hezbollah and Israel,” he wrote.

Ceasefire agreements between Israel and the Lebanese government have repeatedly failed in recent months.

Under the memorandum of understanding, Iran reaffirmed its promise not to develop nuclear weapons – which it did under Obama’s 2015 deal – and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz – which was the case before the United States and Israel started war on February 28. Free passage of ships is only guaranteed during the 60 days of negotiations, with further negotiations expected with Oman and Gulf countries on future arrangements, but no guarantees on what might happen afterward.

The US Central Command announced on Thursday that the blockade of Iranian ports had been lifted.

“Today, U.S. forces lifted the blockade on all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports and coastal areas, in accordance with the President’s instructions,” CENTCOM wrote in an article on

The agreement also commits to “eliminating” and diluting Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium based on a “mutually agreed upon” mechanism. Trump said Wednesday it was “not important” that it happened immediately because he was monitoring the site. “When we get the chance, we will,” he said.

Meanwhile, the United States has pledged to “end all types of sanctions,” including the export of crude oil that has long been the lifeblood of Iran’s economy. The United States says it will work with regional partners to create a $300 billion redevelopment fund for Iran, which was heavily bombed during the conflict, although Trump and a senior official have denied the United States would provide any money itself.

Many details were left vague, perhaps intentionally, and thorny issues were pushed back into the “final” agreement.

“The major issues, the ones where the United States and Iran have clearly drawn their red lines,” have been “pushed to the 60-day negotiating window,” said Dina Esfandiary, head of Middle East geoeconomics at Bloomberg Economics, Bloomberg’s in-house research division.

“Essentially, this has the effect of extending the ceasefire already in place in order to give negotiators space for discussion over the next 60 days,” Esfandiary said.

“Iran doesn’t give much, but it gets a lot in return,” Esfandiary added.

While the United States has already agreed to lift all sanctions, what remains to be offered in future negotiations is less clear. Vance, who said he would lead the negotiating team, expressed hope that the final deal would “ensure” that the Strait of Hormuz “will never be used as a choke point for the global economy,” that Iran will stop “financing regional instability” and that it will not try to rebuild its nuclear weapons program, without giving details of what the United States plans to offer to achieve those goals. “We have all the cards,” he said.

Vance said the deal included “gentleman’s agreements” with Iran that were unwritten, without elaborating. He also expressed hope that the deal could spur Iran to seek a “transformative relationship with the Middle East,” adding: “If they don’t do it, we won’t have skin on our backs anyway.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said Thursday that “it was the American president who, in desperation, was looking for a deal.”

He said that “in-person negotiations that will take place in the future will not mean acceptance of the enemy’s position” and that “if the American side seeks to make excessive demands,” Iran will not comply.

Some Republicans have been scathing about the content of the deal, including incumbent Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, both of whom lost primary battles to Trump-backed opponents.

Cassidy called the deal “the worst foreign policy mistake in decades.” He told NBC News: “Iran is stronger, we are weaker. Our allies are weaker. Iran is getting $300 billion to rebuild, part of which it will use to support things we don’t care about. I think we have 13 dead Americans, we’ve spent between $25 billion and $100 billion on munitions, and it turns out we’ve lost the credible threat of attacking them again.”

“Everything I’ve heard about it worries me,” Conryn said. “Nothing stops the regime from starting to block the Strait of Hormuz again.”

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, said: “History shows that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to assassinate us is a terrible idea. »

“This Iran deal is really a major step backwards for Trump,” said Brett Bruen, a former career diplomat who served under George W. Bush and Barack Obama. “I don’t know if he regains his strength on the world stage after such a major setback.”

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