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Iran Conflict 2026
8JUN

Trump declares the Iran deal over

2 min read
09:58UTC

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agreement over and a waste of time, while Tehran said US and Israeli actions had gutted it; neither side has formally withdrawn.

ConflictDeveloping
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Neither side has formally withdrawn from the memorandum both were negotiating in Doha, where Trump, Baqaei and Qatar's spokesman gave three contradicting accounts of the same talks and Doha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.

First Reported In

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

ABC News· 8 Jul 2026
Read original
Different Perspectives
India
India
India buys more Saudi crude than any other country and has 2.5 million nationals working in the kingdom, so a $100 Brent and a live strike on Saudi tankers reach New Delhi through both fuel bills and remittance risk. Neither channel has an alternative route the way Saudi Arabia's own pipeline does.
Qatar
Qatar
Qatar co-authored the four-mediator ten-day ceasefire proposal alongside Egypt, Pakistan and Oman, centred on resuming Hormuz navigation, while separately pursuing its dated compensation claim against Iran at the UN Security Council filed on 21 July. Doha is mediating and litigating in the same week.
Israel
Israel
Israeli intelligence, reported by the Wall Street Journal, assesses Iran moved thousands of centrifuges and part of its roughly 440kg enriched-uranium stock into Pickaxe Mountain after the June 2025 strikes on its three main nuclear sites. Some of the US refuelling aircraft now deploying to the region are bound for Israeli bases and Ramon Airport.
Houthis
Houthis
Yahya Saree announced the missile and drone strikes on the Encelia and Layla on 22 July as enforcement of the embargo his forces had declared by radio warning alone two days earlier. Six vessels already turned back on the broadcast; the strike shows Houthi forces will use weapons once warnings stop working.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia's state news agency confirmed only a fire on the Encelia's bow, with the crew safe; the Layla strike remains unconfirmed by Riyadh. The kingdom built its Petroline pipeline specifically to bypass Hormuz through the Red Sea, so the tanker fire lands on the route Riyadh had already spent billions escaping.
United States
United States
Washington is weighing both ten-day proposals but wants a longer truce than either offers, and moved F-16 and F-35 jets plus refuelling aircraft into the region while it decides. That deployment, not Trump's Pickaxe Mountain remarks, is the measurable US action, buying options for the day talks fail rather than betting on them.