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European Oil Markets
23JUL

Trump declares the Iran deal over

2 min read
19:27UTC

Trump called the interim Iran agreement over and a waste of time, while Tehran said US and Israeli actions had gutted it; neither side has formally withdrawn.

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Key takeaway

Trump calls the deal over and Iran calls it violated, yet neither has formally torn it up.

President Donald Trump said the interim agreement with Iran is "over" and "a waste of time dealing with them" after the 7 July strikes and Iran's retaliation, while adding that negotiations would continue. 1 The agreement in question is the 18 June Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), a 14-point ceasefire-track text the two sides were still negotiating in Doha last week. Trump's words have carried this message for 120 days; this time a signed licence revocation sits behind them.

Iran's foreign ministry said US and Israeli actions had "rendered key and fundamental elements of the agreement to end the war ineffective". 2 Chief negotiator Mohammad Ghalibaf called both the strikes and the oil-waiver revocation "major violations" of the MOU, putting the financial instrument alongside the kinetic one in Tehran's own complaint. 3 Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei neither claimed nor denied the Al Rekayyat strike, instead invoking Clause 5 of the memorandum to assert an Iranian right to administer Hormuz routing . 4

Neither side has formally withdrawn from the memorandum both were negotiating in Doha, where Trump, Baqaei and Qatar's spokesman gave three contradicting accounts of the same talks and Doha itself billed the round as positive progress . Each capital is now retiring verbal tools for signed ones: Washington swaps Truth Social posts for a licence revocation, Tehran swaps anonymous IRIB framing for a named-spokesman treaty claim. The next Doha round stays paused with no firm late-July date fixed despite Pakistani expectations of one , so the memorandum is decaying rather than dying, and the 17 July licence cliff now arrives before any diplomacy resumes.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The Memorandum of Understanding, or MoU, is a 14-point agreement reached on 18 June between the US and Iran that was meant to wind down the war, a written understanding rather than a ratified treaty. President Trump said the agreement was 'over' and 'a waste of time' after the day's strikes and oil-waiver revocation. Iran's foreign ministry said US and Israeli actions had made key parts of the deal ineffective, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran's parliament, called the day's events 'major violations' of the MoU. Neither side has formally withdrawn from the agreement in writing; both are simply saying, in different words, that it no longer functions.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

The MoU has no enforcement mechanism written into its 14 points; unlike the JCPOA's IAEA verification architecture, it relies entirely on both governments' continued political willingness to reference it, which is why either side can call it ineffective without triggering a formal breach process.

Ghalibaf's move to frame the oil-waiver revocation and strikes together as violations serves a parliamentary function: the Majlis voted 221-0 in April to suspend IAEA cooperation, and casting the MoU as US-violated first gives hardliners in that body grounds to block future civilian-negotiated re-engagement without appearing to reject diplomacy outright.

What could happen next?
  • Risk

    Neither side formally exiting the MoU while both call it dead risks a legal vacuum where future strikes or sanctions carry no agreed reference point for de-escalation.

  • Precedent

    Ghalibaf's parliamentary framing echoes the Majlis's earlier unilateral IAEA suspension, suggesting Iran's legislature, not its foreign ministry, now controls the diplomatic off-ramp.

Sources:ABC News·UK Maritime Trade Operations / Joint Maritime Information Center·UK Maritime Trade Operations / Joint Maritime Information Center
Mentions:Donald Trump →Iran →Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf →Esmaeil Baqaei →Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding →Doha →Majlis →Al Rekayyat →Ukraine →Qatar →Tehran →Truth Social →Washington →IRIB →
First Reported In

Update #149 · The first thing Washington signed on Iran: a revocation

ABC News· 8 Jul 2026
Read original →
Causes and effects
Caused by
Three accounts of one Doha room
The contradictory Doha readouts precede the MoU's near-total collapse.
Occurred 1 Jul 2026
Read story →
Progress at Doha you cannot bank
Qatar's 'positive progress' framing of the 14-point MoU is undercut by both sides calling it violated or ineffective.
Occurred 30 Jun 2026
Read story →
Iran says it struck the Omani route
Baghaei's Clause 5 framing of the Al Rekayyat strike recurs as his MoU violation complaint.
Occurred 6 Jul 2026
Read story →
US-Iran talks pencilled for late July
The expected late-July Doha round has no firm date as the MoU decays.
Occurred 2 Jul 2026
Read story →
CENTCOM hits 80 sites; Iran claims Gulf
The strikes and Iran's Gulf retaliation are what Trump and Iran's foreign ministry reacted to.
Occurred 7 Jul 2026
Read story →
OFAC pulls Iran's oil waiver early
Ghalibaf named the oil-waiver revocation alongside the strikes as an MoU violation.
Occurred 7 Jul 2026
Read story →
Ghalibaf says Iran will not fold
Ghalibaf's public breach declaration follows Trump's statement that the deal was over.
Occurred 8 Jul 2026
Read story →
This Event
Trump declares the Iran deal over
Both capitals are swapping verbal tools for signed ones as the 18 June memorandum decays without a formal repudiation.
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