Trump’s U.S.-Iran Framework Deal, ExplainedExBulletin

In this photo provided by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian shows a signed memorandum of understanding with U.S. President Trump aimed at ending the war and launching negotiations on a broader agreement, in Tehran, Iran, early Thursday. Iranian Presidency Office via AP .

. Office of the Iranian Presidency via AP

Vice President JD Vance delayed his trip to Switzerland on Friday to negotiate the terms of a peace deal with Iran.

It is unclear why the negotiations were canceled at the last minute, when hundreds of journalists were already waiting in the Alpine town of Lucerne.

But the delay raises questions about the strength of the memorandum of understanding to end the war, signed by Trump on Wednesday.

This occurred as Israel continued to massively bomb Lebanon, despite the agreement promising to end all military operations, including in Lebanon.

Lebanese media said at least 18 people were killed in overnight strikes, and Israel said four of its soldiers were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon.

Here are more details on the agreement and the challenges they face in this latest effort to end the conflict:

United States lifts naval blockade

Progress was immediate following the preliminary agreement to end the three-and-a-half month conflict that has killed thousands in the Middle East, shaken the global economy and plunged millions more into poverty around the world, according to the United Nations.

The United States has lifted its naval blockade against Iran.

The short memorandum of understanding also promises to end military operations on all fronts and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway through which much of the world’s oil, gas and fertilizer must pass to reach global markets.

The deal prompted President Trump to rejoice, writing on Truth Social: “Ships of the world, start your engines. Let the oil flow! »

But there are still many potential pitfalls. Even before signing the agreement, Trump had clearly shown his fragility: “It’s a memorandum of understanding,” he declared at the G7 summit in France. “If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we’ll start dropping bombs right in their heads again.”

The document does not resolve the underlying reason why the United States and Israel went to war with Iran. It creates a 60-day window – extendable by mutual agreement – ​​to allow the two sides to resolve their decades-old enmity.

Israel remains hostile to the agreement

The preliminary agreement promises to end all military operations, including in Lebanon. Israel has invaded and conquered large swaths of southern Lebanon in an offensive it says is targeting the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, which has killed more than 3,800 people, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has made clear that Iran views Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon as essential. “Without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they occupied during this war, the war would not have completely ended,” Araghchi said.

Israel has not been involved in negotiations with Iran – although Trump said at a press conference this week that he had sent Israel a copy of the document before signing it. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remained defiant, saying his troops would remain in southern Lebanon for as long as Israel’s security required.

The conflict in Lebanon is causing an extraordinarily wide divide between Trump and Netanyahu. “He’s a very difficult guy,” Trump recently told the New York Times of the Israeli prime minister.

On Thursday, the Israeli military released a new map showing an expanded area of ​​southern Lebanon occupied by its troops, which it describes as a buffer zone.

“The Trump deal does not bind us,” far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on social media on Monday. “We are not partners in this agreement which does not ensure our security.”

Vice President Vance hit back at criticism of the Israeli government, warning during a press conference that “Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the world who currently sympathizes with the nation of Israel.”

Trump signed the agreement to avoid an “economic catastrophe”

The agreement promises “an immediate and permanent end to military operations on all fronts,” including in Lebanon, where Israel has continued its offensive. Iran and the United States also promise to “not launch” a new war or operation against each other. Shortly after Trump signed the memorandum, U.S. Central Command announced Thursday that it had ended the naval blockade of ships going to and from Iranian ports, as promised in the deal.

Iranian state media reported that the country’s National Security Council would suspend tolls paid by ships for 60 days, under the agreement, but that ships must still seek permission from Iran – through a new Persian Gulf Strait Authority, before passing through the Strait of Hormuz, which was once considered an international waterway.

The increase in shipping traffic across the Strait will be a relief for Trump, whose approval ratings have fallen as Americans see gasoline prices and inflation soar. Last month, Trump insisted he wasn’t thinking about Americans’ financial situation in his approach to Iran.

But this week, he admitted at a press conference that he signed the agreement because he “did not want to see an economic catastrophe.”

Memorandum grants major concessions to Iran

Trump repeatedly called the Iran nuclear deal – officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – chaired by President Barack Obama in 2015 “the worst deal ever,” and Trump abandoned the deal during his first term. But the framework agreement signed this week grants Iran significant financial concessions that could ultimately go much further than the Obama-era agreement.

The document says the United States will work with regional partners to create a fund of “at least $300 billion” for Iran’s reconstruction and economic development. Vice President Vance said the Gulf Arab countries would invest this amount.

He also promises that the United States will unlock Iranian funds and assets that potentially amount to tens of billions of dollars. Mohsen Rezaei, military adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, told CNN that Iran wants to see the release of $24 billion.

These commitments depend on the continuation of negotiations. But the Trump administration also plans to grant sanctions waivers to allow Iran to immediately sell its oil. The waiver concedes a major point of potential leverage at the start of these 60-day negotiations.

And the interim deal also opens the door to ending all U.S. and international sanctions against Iran. Iran has been subject to a host of US sanctions since the 1979 revolution. The sanctions have kept Iran cut off from the global economy, preventing it, for example, from accessing the international banking sector. This new commitment goes well beyond the JCPOA agreement, which removed certain sanctions in exchange for Iran reducing its uranium stockpiles.

Negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program

President Trump bragged about reaching a much “better” deal than the JCPOA. Substantive negotiations on this topic have not yet begun, but so far Iran’s commitment in the memorandum that it “will not acquire or develop nuclear weapons” is the same promise it has made for years, including in the 2015 nuclear deal.

The details of Iran’s nuclear program are complex and technical. The JCPOA was negotiated over the years by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China, with nuclear physicists and nonproliferation experts, and was 159 pages long. Trump’s framework was negotiated bilaterally by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, a real estate developer and the president’s son-in-law. An Iranian diplomat who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly told NPR that he believed the latest round of negotiations with the Trump administration had not progressed because “the Americans around the table did not understand the subject.”

The United States had negotiated with Iran over its nuclear program before abruptly launching the bombing campaign with Israel on Tehran that started this war on February 28. For this latest round of negotiations, Witkoff and Kushner traveled to Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee earlier this month for consultations with a team of technical experts who could play a role in nuclear negotiations with Iran.

Did Iran emerge stronger from the war?

Trump began the conflict by promising to create conditions for regime change in Iran. “I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is near,” he told Iranians in a televised speech on February 28. “When we’re done, take your government. It will be yours to take.”

Facing bombing from two of the world’s most powerful armies was a nightmare scenario for the Iranian regime. The war has killed more than 3,300 Iranians, according to state media, including top leaders, and has damaged the country’s infrastructure and armed forces. But the regime’s survival and ability to target U.S. assets in the region and control the Strait of Hormuz has empowered Iran.

The country has learned “that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works,” said Bill Cassidy, Republican senator from Louisiana, in a scathing attack on the Trump administration. He called the offensive against Iran “the worst foreign policy mistake in decades.”

The Iranian response has forced the Trump administration to set aside the goal of regime change to focus on finding a way to reopen the vital strait.

“The only ‘achievement’ of the ceasefire is the likely reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the war started. And we are apparently going to pay Iran to do it,” Antony Blinken, who was secretary of state under former President Joe Biden, posted on X.

Trump countered criticism by saying on social media that anyone who thinks he hasn’t been “tough enough on Iran” while the stock market is high and oil prices are falling is either jealous, mean or stupid. And Vance called on critics to “have a little faith in the president of the United States.”

But in a rigorous analysis of the war, the facts are undeniable: Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz gave it the leverage to extract concessions from Trump that will unlock huge sums of money – potentially even more than under Obama.

And when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program, the Iranians so far appear to have offered Trump no more concessions than during the Geneva negotiations, two days before the U.S.-Israeli offensive launched in February.

New negotiations are about to begin, and the Iranians will come to the table having shown Trump, and the world, the power they can wield over the global economy.

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