Vice President JD Vance’s trip to Switzerland was delayed as Israel continued striking Lebanon even after Trump signed a preliminary U.S.-Iran memorandum promising an end to military operations and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The unfolding gap between
By the time Vice President JD Vance was due to land in Switzerland for negotiations on Friday, hundreds of journalists were already waiting in Lucerne—an alpine city built for punctual arrivals and carefully planned schedules.
The trip was delayed instead.
Officials didn’t spell out why the talks were called off at the last minute, but the interruption quickly landed in the center of a more urgent question: how steady is the memorandum of understanding Trump signed on Wednesday, the document meant to end the war and start broader negotiations.
The tension isn’t happening in a vacuum. Israel has continued heavily bombarding Lebanon even as the agreement it is supposed to calm is described as promising an end to military operations. including in Lebanon. Lebanese media reported that at least 18 people were killed in overnight strikes. Israel said four of its soldiers were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon.
The stakes in Washington aren’t abstract either. The memo’s promise to reopen the Strait of Hormuz would move world markets, including oil, gas and fertilizer. And with Americans watching soaring gasoline prices and spiking inflation as Trump’s approval ratings have slid. the president is openly linking his Iran push to economic stability.
On Truth Social, he celebrated the lift of pressure at sea soon after the agreement was signed, writing: “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!”
But the battlefield and the calendar have become a test of whether the diplomatic language can keep up.
The administration’s first visible step came quickly: the United States lifted its naval blockade on Iran. The memorandum of understanding also promises to end military operations on all fronts and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. described as the crucial waterway through which much of the world’s oil. gas and fertilizer must pass to reach global markets.
Even Trump seemed to acknowledge how brittle the concept was when he described it at the G7 summit in France. “It’s a memorandum of understanding,” he said. “If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head.”
The document doesn’t claim to solve the deeper conflict either. It creates a 60-day window—extendable by mutual agreement—for the U.S. and Iran to resolve enmity that dates back many decades.
Israel, however, has not treated the memo as binding.
After the agreement was announced. Israel was still carrying out an offensive in southern Lebanon. saying it is targeting the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah. which has killed more than 3. 800 people. according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The memorandum’s language—ending military operations including in Lebanon—clashes with Israel’s continued campaign on the ground.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has made clear what Tehran considers non-negotiable. “Without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they occupied during this war, the war has not fully come to an end,” Araghchi said.
Israel wasn’t part of the negotiations with Iran, though Trump said at a press conference this week that he had sent Israel a copy of the document before he signed it.
Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has remained defiant. He has said Israeli troops will remain in southern Lebanon for as long as Israel’s security requires it.
That position is feeding an unusually open fracture between Trump and Netanyahu. Trump said of Netanyahu recently that “he’s a very difficult guy.” Separately. the Israeli military released a new map on Thursday showing an expanded area of southern Lebanon occupied by its troops. which it describes as a buffer zone.
The disagreement is also visible inside Israel’s government. Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on social media on Monday: “Trump’s agreement does not bind us.” He added: “We are not partners to this agreement that does not ensure our security.”
At a press conference, Vice President Vance pushed back on critics, warning that “Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time.”
For Washington, the memo is also an attempt to stop the downward spiral into broader economic damage. Trump has claimed he signed the deal because he “didn’t want to see an economic catastrophe.”
The agreement, meanwhile, contains concessions to Iran that go far beyond the mechanics of a ceasefire.
Trump has repeatedly attacked the Iran nuclear deal formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. or JCPOA—negotiated in 2015 by Barack Obama and later abandoned by Trump in his first term—calling it the “worst deal ever.” Yet the framework signed this week opens the door to financial commitments that could ultimately surpass what the JCPOA delivered.
The memorandum says the U.S. will work with regional partners to create a fund of “at least $300 billion” for Iran’s reconstruction and economic development. Vance has said Gulf Arab nations would invest that amount.
It also promises that the U.S. will unfreeze Iranian funds and assets that amount potentially to tens of billions of dollars. Mohsen Rezaei, described as a military adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, told CNN that Iran wants to see the release of $24 billion.
Those commitments depend on further negotiations. but the near-term measures are already built to change what Iran can do during the 60-day window. The Trump administration plans to issue sanction waivers that would allow Iran to immediately sell its oil. The waiver is a major concession at the outset of talks.
The interim deal also opens the door to ending all U.S. and international sanctions on Iran. Iran has been under a wide web of U.S. sanctions since the 1979 Revolution. keeping the country cut off from the global economy and preventing it. for example. from accessing the international banking sector. The new pledge goes beyond the JCPOA’s model. which removed some sanctions in exchange for Iran reducing its stockpile of uranium.
The memo also sets the basic terms of the nuclear negotiation—without yet beginning the hard technical bargaining.
Trump has said he will achieve a much “better” agreement than the JCPOA. The substantive talks haven’t started yet. but the memorandum includes a commitment that Iran “shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.” The promise is the same as the one Iran has made for years. including in the 2015 accord.
The technical negotiations ahead are expected to be complex. The JCPOA involved years of work by the U.S. U.K. France. Germany. Russia and China. along with nuclear physicists and non-proliferation experts. and it ran to 159 pages. Trump’s framework. by contrast. was negotiated bilaterally by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner—described as a property developer and the president’s son-in-law.
An Iranian diplomat who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity—because the person was not authorized to speak publicly—said the diplomat believed a prior round of talks with the Trump administration did not progress because “the Americans at the table did not understand the subject.”
Before this latest push, the U.S. had been negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program but abruptly launched a bombing campaign with Israel on Tehran that began the war on Feb. 28.
For these new talks, Witkoff and Kushner visited the national lab in Oak Ridge, Tennessee earlier this month for consultations with a team of technical experts who could play a role in nuclear negotiations with Iran.
The war’s record is also part of why many observers see the memo as something more than a ceasefire.
Trump began the conflict promising to set conditions for regime change in Iran. In a televised address on Feb. 28, he told Iranians: “I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand.” He added: “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.”
That scenario never became a policy outcome. The war killed more than 3,300 Iranians, according to state media, including top leaders, and pounded the country’s infrastructure and armed forces.
Yet the Iranian regime survived. Its ability to target U.S. assets in the region and control the Strait of Hormuz also gave Iran leverage.
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana later said the country learned “that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works,” and called the offensive against Iran “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”
The administration had to adjust its goals. Iran’s response forced the Trump administration to set aside the regime change objective to focus on reopening the strait.
Antony Blinken, who served as secretary of state under former President Joe Biden, posted on X that “The only ‘achievement’ of the ceasefire is the likely reopening of the Strait of Hormuz — which was open before the war started. And we will apparently pay Iran to do so.”
Trump countered critics on social media, saying that anyone who thinks he hasn’t been tough enough on Iran—when the stock market is high and oil prices are falling—is either jealous, bad or stupid. Vance told critics to “have a little bit of faith in the president of the United States.”
There is, however, a hard accounting that follows the facts. Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz gave it leverage to secure from Trump concessions that unlock large sums of money—even more, potentially, than under Obama.
On the nuclear issue, the Iranians so far appear not to have offered Trump any more concessions than they did at the Geneva talks two days before the U.S. and Israel launched their offensive in February.
Now the talks are supposed to begin. with Iran entering them having demonstrated what it can do to the global economy. And with Vance’s Switzerland trip delayed and Israel continuing military activity in Lebanon. the memo’s credibility will be measured not in drafts and signatures. but in what happens next—hour by hour. on the strait and beyond it.
United States politics Trump Iran memorandum of understanding ceasefire Strait of Hormuz JD Vance Israel Lebanon Netanyahu Abbas Araghchi sanctions waivers naval blockade