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Iran Conflict 2026
22JUN

Trump declares the Iran deal over

2 min read
09:56UTC

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agreement over and a waste of time, while Tehran said US and Israeli actions had gutted it; neither side has formally withdrawn.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Neither side has formally withdrawn from the memorandum both were negotiating in Doha, where Trump, Baqaei and Qatar's spokesman gave three contradicting accounts of the same talks and Doha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
Hengaw
Hengaw
The Norway-based monitoring group reported the Urmia executions of Omid Behzad and Pouria Safvat, the only source to do so, consistent with its documented pattern of recording far more executions than the Iranian state acknowledges. Iran's government has not confirmed either execution.
Shipping and insurance underwriters
Shipping and insurance underwriters
War-risk premiums price the Houthi campaign because the group announces its targets in advance, but a reopening Trump has promised without a published text gives underwriters no benchmark to reprice Hormuz cover against. Insurers want a text before they move rates, not a promise.
Houthi movement
Houthi movement
Spokesman Yahya Saree claimed strikes on two tankers in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden on 5 August, only one of which UKMTO could confirm. The group's campaign against shipping continues on its own schedule, independent of any Hormuz arrangement further north.
Oman
Oman
Muscat has brokered the coordinates both Tehran and Washington's wire sources now describe differently, but has published no account of its own. Oman's position depends on treating Hormuz as a shared route, which is not what Iran is currently describing.
United States Central Command
United States Central Command
CENTCOM raised its interdiction tally from 35 to 44 redirected vessels and disclosed its first boardings on 3 August, the day before Trump promised a reopening. The command's own enforcement record does not yet reflect the release the President has described.
Iran's Foreign Ministry
Iran's Foreign Ministry
Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei described the agreed Hormuz coordinates as a wholly new corridor under Iranian management, not a split of the existing route, days after his own deputy rejected Oman's lane proposal. Tehran wants the arrangement read as a change of ownership, not a compromise on access.