A memorandum signed for a 60-day U.S.-Iran negotiation has already stumbled, with Iran postponing talks and then saying it closed the Strait of Hormuz again amid Israel’s campaign in Lebanon. Back in Washington, Trump faces backlash from both wings of his coal
Vice President JD Vance arrived in Switzerland for talks with Iranian negotiators with a promise already on paper—but the road to it kept breaking down.
In his remarks in Switzerland, Vance said, “The opening of the Strait of Hormuz, the ending of the Iranian nuclear program – all of these things have already been accomplished.” Then he pivoted to what remained: “The question for us now is how much more can we accomplish together.”
What happens next will depend on whether the memorandum of understanding signed by the parties can hold. The deal was supposed to launch a 60-day negotiation period covering “all of the tough issues.” But the opening of the Strait of Hormuz was meant to happen as soon as the memorandum was signed. It didn’t.
Iran briefly postponed the talks, and it also said it closed the strait again. The reason Iran gave was tied to the wider conflict: Israel was still bombing Lebanon. and the situation on that front was not being treated as separate. In recent weeks. the transcript recounts. there have been many ceasefires—and many failed ceasefires—between Israel and Hezbollah. as Israel tries to destroy Hezbollah. which is described as an Iranian proxy.
The dispute, then, is not only between Washington and Tehran. The Lebanon front has become part of how the strait is treated in practice, turning a negotiation timeline into something more conditional and more fragile.
The memorandum itself has also met immediate opposition at home—criticism that spans not just foreign policy experts. but parts of Trump’s own coalition. The Make America Great Again movement—members who supported Trump because he promised “no more foreign wars”—are angry that the war began in the first place. They argue the memorandum doesn’t deliver meaningful gains and instead drifts back toward the pre-crisis arrangement.
Those critics focus on the idea that the memorandum leaves Iran the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz if it wants to. The transcript points to Iran’s claim that it did exactly that “yesterday,” even while the U.S. says the strait is open.
At the same time, another strain of Republican criticism comes from Iran hawks who argue the proposed outcome isn’t meaningfully better than what President Obama negotiated roughly a decade ago—an agreement Trump had attacked for years.
Their objections are concrete. The hawks say Iran would still keep its ballistic missile program. that it would be able to unfreeze some frozen assets. and that it would receive a “$300 billion reconstruction plan.” Trump. the transcript says. has insisted the U.S. would not be investing that money, but that U.S. allies in the Gulf would. They also argue the deal “kicks the can down the road” on uranium enrichment and nuclear weapons.
And they contend the memorandum fails to meet other stated goals from Trump’s original war posture, including unconditional surrender and regime change.
One sharp expression of that critique came from the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which said, “this is a recipe for the surrender of the strait to the dictates of Iranian foreign policy.” Trump then attacked his critics, calling them “stupid and bad people.”
For now, the question that keeps returning is whether this memorandum—sticking or slipping—does less harm than continued military pressure.
Politically, the argument offered in the transcript is that the memorandum matters because it can help lower prices. The point is not framed as a grand geopolitical victory. but as a domestic calculation: Trump needed oil prices to come down. and the price of gas and fertilizer—fertilizer is described as a driver of higher food prices—were hurting his party in the midterms while the Strait of Hormuz was closed. If the strait opens and gas prices drop to “$3 a gallon. ” the transcript says. it could become a domestic political win for voters—even if geopolitically it doesn’t remove Iran as a threat.
That tension—between what the diplomacy aims to do and what its critics say it doesn’t do—was threaded into the rest of the week.
Trump had just returned from the G7 summit in France. and one detail stood out in the transcript: he signed the memorandum of understanding in Versailles. The location isn’t treated as ceremonial trivia. Versailles is described as the same place where the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919. a treaty that officially ended World War I but was widely considered a bad one that set the stage for World War II.
Back in Washington, the transcript adds, the mood wasn’t confined to Europe or the Middle East. Trump found something waiting at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool: algae and peeling blue paint.
The pool has “a ton of green. slimy algae. ” and the transcript says it could be caused by the pool absorbing more sunlight and heat because Trump painted the bottom dark blue—what he calls “American flag blue.” The paint itself is also peeling off. leaving what the transcript frames as a metaphor for Trump’s trouble getting the world to obey him—or. alternatively. a temporary blip in his beautification efforts in Washington.
Vance’s Switzerland talks are set against all of that: an agreement launched with promises, undone by real-world conditions, challenged from multiple directions at home, and shadowed by a wider conflict in Lebanon that refuses to stay in its lane.
United States politics Iran negotiations Strait of Hormuz JD Vance G7 summit Versailles Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Hezbollah Israel Lebanon Republican Party Make America Great Again Wall Street Journal editorial