President Donald Trump says a deal to end the war with Iran is “now complete” and that it will reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But the memorandum of understanding’s text has not been released, leaving the future of Iran’s nuclear program undecided and raising imm
By the time President Donald Trump stepped onto the international stage in France, the claim was already set: the U.S. and Iran had reached an agreement to end the war, and the work was “now complete.” Trump also tied the deal to a concrete pressure point—the Strait of Hormuz—saying it would reopen.
The announcement came after months of tension and a rapid shift in circumstances on the ground. On Feb. 28, the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran, starting a war that has killed thousands of people and largely shut down a major oil waterway, the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump’s pledge that any new agreement would be different from the 2015 deal signed under former President Barack Obama now sits in an uncomfortable gap: the memorandum of understanding has been reached. but the text has not yet been released. And while Trump says the agreement is signed, the future of Iran’s nuclear program remains undecided.
Trump criticized the 2015 accord that aimed to curb Iran’s nuclear capabilities and pulled the U.S. out of it in 2018 during his first term.
On June 14, after repeatedly teasing that a U.S.-Iran deal was coming soon, Trump announced the two had reached an agreement. This week, he is at the G7 Summit in France, where the deal is expected to be a major point of discussion.
That makes one thing plain: the diplomacy is moving, but key answers are still absent.
Obama casts doubt as the new deal takes shape
Even before Trump’s announcement, Obama made his skepticism known. In an interview conducted June 13 on “Good Morning America. ” he said. “It is doubtful that any agreement that arises is going to be significantly different or a significant improvement from the deal that we had in the first place and had worked for. for a long stretch of time before we. the United States. pulled out of it.”.
Obama also argued for diplomacy over military action, saying he was “hopeful that bombing stops and ordinary people are no longer suffering as a consequence of the war.”
Those remarks land against the timeline of the current conflict, which began escalating dramatically after the Feb. 28 bombings. The result has been not just human loss, but also a near-seizure of global energy movement through the Strait of Hormuz.
What was in Obama’s Iran nuclear deal
The 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was an agreement between the US, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the EU, and Iran.
Under the accord, Iran agreed to give up the means to make a nuclear weapon. In exchange, the U.S. and its allies pulled back economic sanctions against Iran. The deal also included international watchdog monitoring of Iran’s programs.
In other words, the bargain had a clear structure: limits, verification, and sanctions relief.
Trump’s promised alternative arrives—without the document
Trump’s deal, by contrast, is still waiting for its fine print. The full text of the agreement has not yet been released.
Trump said on June 15 from France that the deal was signed and that the text would be released sometime after Friday. U.S. and Iranian officials are expected to meet on Friday in Switzerland for a formal signing.
There is, however, a framework of what Trump says the agreement includes.
Trump has announced that at least the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened in exchange for the end of the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.
A senior U.S. official told reporters that the memorandum of understanding includes the possibility of sanction relief and releasing Iranian funds that have been frozen.
The agreement also would set the stage for further negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program—a thorny issue that has not been resolved.
For now, that leaves the biggest question hanging in the air: how does this deal differ from Obama’s 2015 approach when the nuclear future is still not settled and the memorandum’s text is not in the public record?
The sequence is simple enough to feel in real time: a war already described as killing thousands of people. a blockade and a shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz. and now a new agreement whose most crucial details—especially on nuclear constraints—are still not formally published. With the signing scheduled in Switzerland and the document still unreleased. the difference Trump promised will be judged less by statements and more by what is actually written down.
Trump Iran deal Strait of Hormuz Iran nuclear program Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Obama Iran deal G7 summit France U.S. blockade of Iranian ports sanction relief frozen Iranian funds