Trump’s Iran Deal: What We Know, What’s Contested, and What Remains Unresolved

The United States and Iran reached an agreement on June 14 to settle a three-and-a-half month-long conflict that has closed the Strait of Hormuz, sent shockwaves through global oil markets, and affected global growth projections. Neither country has shared the exact terms of the deal, but Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who served as a mediator between Washington and Tehran, said on Sunday that an agreement will be officially signed on Friday in Switzerland.

The initial pact—a memorandum of understanding (MOU)—will start with reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a choke point for nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supply, unnamed Pakistani officials told the Associated Press. Both sides will then reportedly begin sixty days of negotiations about sanctions and Iran’s nuclear program. 

The administration has indicated that the memo will be released after a public signing ceremony in Geneva that will be attended by Vice President JD Vance, Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner—President Donald Trump’s son-in-law. The United States and Iran have made conflicting statements about the deal’s terms, but it appears that the agreement is focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending military attacks. 

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, announced that “a permanent and immediate end to the war has been declared on all fronts.” He added that Iran would begin fulfilling the commitments made in the deal following Friday’s signing. Trump celebrated the agreement by posting, “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!”

Markets saw a boost in reaction to the deal’s announcement, and the price of oil dropped by $4 per barrel, even before the strait was officially reopened. But many experts noted that any expectation that this agreement could lead to a lasting peace could be premature.  

“We have been here before only to discover the parties cannot bridge the remaining gaps,” said Steven Cook, a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). “Negotiations on the outstanding issues, especially on Iran’s nuclear program, will be long and difficult.”

While the specific terms of the deal haven’t been made public, below are six topline items that have been central to U.S.-Iran talks since the start of the war.

Strait of Hormuz

The strait remained closed after the countries announced their MOU this weekend, but Trump told the New York Times that the waterway would be “permanently toll-free” once it reopens after the Friday signing in Geneva. The agreement reportedly sketches out a plan for the United States to remove its naval blockade of the strait, while Iran would agree to reopen the waterway for commercial shipping. 

“How the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is managed will be something to watch closely. While Iran may agree to not charge ‘tolls,’ service fees and other mechanisms have been floated,” said Elisa Ewers, a senior fellow for Middle East studies at CFR. “Getting as close as possible to status quo ante will be important for global commerce, for allies to avoid setting dangerous precedents for other waterways, and for regional partners, who will need to live with the arrangements,” she added.

Trump claimed in a social media post that ships—“many loaded up with Oil”—are already beginning to move through the strait, which was “totally safe, secure, and pristine.” Iran’s semi-official news agency Mehr published a fourteen-point copy of what it said was the MOU,  which has not been verified, and said that the reopening would be subject to “Iranian arrangements,” without specifying further. 

The Iranian blockade, which has been mostly in effect since the war’s outbreak in late February, has severely limited global energy supply, sending oil prices into disarray and diminishing some countries’ power supply. The price of oil dropped to its lowest point in weeks on Friday after Trump’s announcement that a deal was close, and dropped again after the weekend agreement. But experts indicated that it would still likely take several months for the flow of oil to return to normal after the Strait of Hormuz is reopened. Scouring the waterbed for mines alone will likely take weeks. 

Iran’s nuclear program

The Iranian nuclear program has been one of the most contentious issues. Its facilities were the target of major U.S.-Israeli strikes in 2025 and the Trump administration cited it as an initial reason for pursuing the current war. Iran insists that its nuclear program is peaceful, despite its history of noncompliance with the UN nuclear watchdog and its enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade.

Since Trump formally withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, on-again, off-again negotiations between Washington and Tehran on a new nuclear agreement have been unsuccessful. The United States wants to ensure that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon, which includes Iran giving up its enriched uranium and putting a moratorium on its program. The Islamic Republic has resisted these demands. 

Nevertheless, the draft MOU includes pledges from both countries to further negotiate the enrichment program’s suspension and stockpile removal. Iran would, however, commit to never pursuing a nuclear weapon—a commitment it made and crossed before. Vance said in a CNBC interview that the deal has Iran’s commitment to “never develop or procure a nuclear weapon.” Trump claimed last week that Iran has already affirmed this. Iran, meanwhile, has not made a definitive commitment publicly, instead releasing a statement on Sunday saying that “final negotiations will be postponed until after the implementation of the other party’s commitments under the memorandum.” 

The deal on the table, according to multiple news reports, does include Iran’s commitment to halt enrichment and dismantle its nuclear sites, but the length of the pause could be a point of disagreement. The United States is reportedly pushing for twenty years, while Iran reportedly won’t go above ten—and the final terms will have to be negotiated during the sixty-day pause. “The details matter here,” Ewers said, in terms of what the inspection and verification regime will be, what dismantlement entails in the context of facilities that were targeted in the June 2025 bombings, and several other provisions.

Iranian state news agency IRNA said that Iran would negotiate on the nuclear issue “solely within the framework of the Islamic Republic’s fundamental principles,” and wouldn’t be willing to give up enrichment—which will make a verification system critical.  

“By building many small workshops containing advanced centrifuges, Tehran can challenge the prying foreigners to find them all,” Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow for Middle East studies at CFR, wrote last month. “If any escape detection, the regime has a safer path to bomb production.”

Iranian proxies

The web of militant groups across the Middle East that are supported by Iran have contributed to the escalation of several conflicts in recent years, including the Israel-Hamas war that broke out after the October 7, 2023, attacks and the Iran war. The Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon have been the primary nonstate actors involved: the Houthis launched missiles at Israel on March 28, and Israel and Hezbollah were locked in conflict for several weeks in connection to Israel’s initial strikes on Iran in February.  

The draft U.S.-Iran deal would stipulate that hostilities from all sides would cease, and this would include on the Israel-Hezbollah front. Iran would also agree to not fund terrorist groups—a reference to Iran’s proxies—a U.S. official told the BBC. Iran has not yet made any statements about whether they would agree to this. In the past, it has both opposed negotiation about its proxy network and supported stopping Israeli hostilities in Lebanon—which Cook said is part of Iran’s “effort to save Hezbollah and keep Lebanon from normalizing ties with Israel.”

Israel’s military, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), announced an evacuation notice for civilians in southern Lebanon on June 12, citing “Hezbollah’s violation of the ceasefire agreement.” Israel is not part of the draft MOU between the United States and Iran, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he and Trump had spoken on the matter last week and were in “complete agreement.” 

Hezbollah released a statement on Monday that they welcomed a deal that halted fighting on all fronts, though the militant group asserted that it has a right to “defend” Lebanon until Israel makes a complete withdrawal.

Military limits

The limits that the United States would like to place on Iran’s missile program are, perhaps, among the most difficult sticking points to negotiate. Iran has cast changes to its missile program as an intractable red line, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posting on his Telegram channel after talks in February that the country’s program was “never negotiable,” calling it a “defense issue.” 

Iran’s counterproposal, as reported by Iranian state media, focuses exclusively on nuclear issues, sanctions relief, and economic compensation—making no mention of its ballistic missile program. But Israel has continued to push hard from the outside to force the issue, and the United States has maintained that any deal should address Iran’s missile capabilities to ensure regional security. 

Few details have surfaced about Iran’s missile program in reports of the deal. Some analysts and experts believe that this U.S. and Israeli demand has quietly diminished as negotiations have proceeded, even as U.S. intelligence sources estimate that Iran retains 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile and roughly 70 percent of its mobile missile launchers. There are further concerns that Iran is using the current ceasefire to steadily rebuild its military base faster than expected. 

Iran has also indicated that it would like to limit U.S. power in the region as part of a deal by requiring U.S. forces to withdraw from Iran’s periphery. Trump has said he “can’t imagine” accepting that demand.

Compensation and sanctions

Iran entered the war negotiations with financial grievances due to U.S. and Israeli attacks in recent months. The Islamic Republic has called for reparations, and Iranian officials have claimed $270 billion in direct and indirect war damage since February 28. While the United States has rejected the reparations framing, there is an expectation that an agreement could include financial incentives for Iran, possibly in the form of unfrozen assets and sanctions relief. 

The sequencing of a potential release of funds and sanctions relief could be an issue. Iran has reportedly asserted that it should be able to immediately access about $24 billion that the United States and its allies have frozen, while officials in Washington have argued that assets should remain frozen until Tehran meets certain standards and there is a final, verifiably implemented deal. 

In May, top Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf reportedly called for half of that fund to be released at the signing of the MOU, with the other half released within sixty days. Neither side has publicly shown flexibility on the timeline for sanctions relief and releasing assets. Vice President Vance told CNBC that, “We say to the Iranians, you are welcome to have access to an unsanctioned economy, you’re welcome to be re-invited into the world economy, but only if you honor the commitments that you make in this agreement.” 

Iran’s economic needs are great, especially if it would like to address economic concerns that led to widespread protests earlier this year and stabilize a wartime economy running at nearly 70 percent of annual inflation.

Israel’s war in Lebanon

The conflict in Lebanon has functioned as both a pressure point for Iran and a persistent complication for U.S. diplomacy with the Islamic Republic. Iran has explicitly linked Israel’s war on its neighbor to any potential ceasefire between Tehran and Washington. The Islamic Republic even briefly suspended negotiations earlier this month in response to Israeli operations in Lebanon. The Lebanese Health Ministry reported more than 3,400 killed in Lebanon since fighting escalated in early March; the toll continues to rise, and includes both civilians and combatants. 

While Iran has said that ending the war in Lebanon is an “inseparable part” of the agreement to end the Iran war, Israel has framed its Lebanon campaign as a separate and ongoing objective—one it has pursued with or without U.S. support. Netanyahu said in March that Israel was focused on “dismantling Hezbollah” as part of its wider campaign against Iran, saying the IDF had “fundamentally changed” the situation and that any Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon would be contingent on Hezbollah’s disarmament. 

“Including Lebanon in this understanding between Iran and the United States, as Iran has demanded, is not ideal even if it was inevitable,” CFR’s Ewers said. “For the Israel government, halting its fight against Hezbollah is a tall order, especially with upcoming elections and while Washington negotiates with Tehran on the thorny issues. For the Lebanese government, which is fractured itself, it underscores that [Lebanon] could not deliver fully on disarmament commitments while Hezbollah continues to shoot at Israel,” she added.

A U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon took effect on April 16, but both sides repeatedly accused each other of violations; the agreement has been extended twice since. Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon and Beirut have continued, prompting a heated confrontation between Trump and Netanyahu that underscored how much the Lebanon front is complicating the broader Iran deal. Even as news of the MOU broke, Israel struck the Beirut area on June 14, killing three people—a move Trump criticized for threatening the agreement. 

Israel, however, was not involved in the negotiation and Israeli officials appear to be unhappy with the deal. Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed that Israeli forces would not withdraw from the area it holds in Lebanon and would hit Iran “with full force” should Tehran act aggressively. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir added on his Telegram channel that “Trump’s agreement does not bind us... we are not party to this agreement. It does not safeguard our security.”

Nonetheless, Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif’s announcement of the deal mentioned its terms cover immediate, permanent stop to military operations, specifically calling out Lebanon.

“Hopefully, the negotiation track between Israel and Lebanon continues apace, and Hezbollah abides by whatever restraints Tehran places on it in the context of the next sixty-plus days of negotiations,” Ewers added. “Still, it will take real time and political commitment—including from Washington—to continue to keep the Lebanon-Israel process progressing.”