Trump and Iran signed a truce but still can't agree on what its terms mean
By: Susannah George (The Washington Post via MSN)
President Trump made a deal but doesn't know what's in it. And now his assumptions have blown up in his face.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
July 15, 2026 -- Almost as soon as Iran and the United States agreed to an initial deal on a truce last month, they began accusing each other of violating it. At issue has been the document’s vague language on a critical issue: control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian officials say the deal hands Tehran control over the strait, a key choke point, through which Tehran has halted most marine traffic for months, sending shocks through the global economy. U.S. officials say the agreement opens the waterway as it had been before the war.
Some critics of the accord accuse U.S. negotiators of hasty capitulation under pressure from President Donald Trump as he sought to relieve growing stress on global energy markets. Some key Republicans, such as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), questioned the deal’s extensive economic relief for Iran that required little in return.
In an interview Monday, Trump suggested the deal’s language was vague by design.
“It was built to test” Iran, Trump said on “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” claiming that he initially wanted a more expansive peace agreement with Iran, but ultimately settled on something of a trial balloon.
“It’s a memorandum of understanding, it doesn’t mean much,” he said.
With the reimposition of the U.S. blockade Tuesday, the deal has effectively collapsed. Trump is threatening wider attacks and, after hours of overnight strikes, U.S. forces conducted daytime attacks Wednesday. While both sides say the ambiguous language supports their claims, analysts and former officials warn the agreement will likely make future rounds of talks more difficult.
After the United States and Iran reached a deal last month, both sides declared the strait open to traffic but quickly clashed over what route ships were allowed to take.
Iranian forces had mined the strait’s central route early on in the war and instructed vessels by radio to divert to a northern route along Iran’s coast. That route allowed Tehran to more easily control strait traffic and collect tolls.
Once the deal was in place last month, the United States began encouraging ships stranded in the Persian Gulf to depart by way of a southern route that hugs Oman’s coastline. Tehran declared the route unauthorized and within two weeks of agreeing to the deal launched a strike on a vessel using it.
Trump called the attack a “foolish violation,” and U.S. forces attacked Iran hours later. The two sides would trade attacks five more time over the next two and half weeks. The U.S. hit Iranian munitions stores and radar sites, according to U.S. Central Command. Iran struck U.S. allies including Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.
As the attacks escalated this month, the United States began rolling back the deal’s economic benefits for Iran. Last week, the Treasury Department rescinded a waiver on Iranian oil sanctions established under the deal, which allowed Tehran to make billions of dollars in just a few weeks, and issued fresh sanctions on Iran, contradicting a term of the agreement establishing a “status quo” of no new sanctions in exchange for no Iranian development of its nuclear program.
A single paragraph in the deal is at the center of disagreements between Tehran and Washington: “Paragraph five,” the section that deals with the Strait of Hormuz.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements, using its best efforts, for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days only, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa,” the opening sentence of the agreement’s fifth paragraph reads.
Later, it says that Iran “will conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz.”
Iranian officials say these lines, specifically the “Iran will make arrangements” language, recognizes Tehran’s control over the waterway. The United States interprets a different line, which says “the traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start,” to mean that shipping in Hormuz should resume unimpeded. (You can read the agreement in its entirety here)
“One could drive a truck — or an aircraft carrier — through paragraph 5,” a part of the agreement dealing with the strait, wrote Robert Malley, a former diplomat and negotiator who served as special envoy to Iran under the Obama administration. Malley said it wasn’t only the “shoddy, imprecise” language of the deal, but also the two sides’ “widely differing assessments of who has greater leverage.”
Both Iran and the United States attempted to declare victory based on the agreement. Now, as the two sides return to conflict, both are betting the other will bend first. Iran expects it can inflict greater pain on international markets by closing the strait, and the United States expects that reimposing its blockade of Iranian ports will hurt Tehran more, according to analysts and former officials.
Iranian messaging on the strait has been consistent, even before the announcement of a ceasefire with the United States: Tehran has said the waterway is changed forever. “Everyone should know that the administration of the Strait of Hormuz will never go back to the way it was before the war,” said Iran’s chief negotiator and parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
Scrapping the deal, even if it was more of an initial framework, risks undermining future diplomatic efforts, said Danny Citrinowicz, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli think tank.
“If Iranian leaders conclude that diplomacy offers diminishing returns, they may become less willing to exercise … restraint,” he wrote on X. Now, he said, it’s critical the United States clearly defines its goals. “Without a clearly defined political end state, there is a risk that continued escalation becomes an end in itself.”
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President Trump is making long term promises about guarding the Strait of Hormuz far into the future. Tell us again why this isn't another forever war.
At this point I will wait a month after anything is said and then determine if the claim is anything more than bullshit. Do what you have to do and then get on with other priorities. Thinking Iran can be dealt with logically is a waste of time
So, what are we to take away from everything the President has said?
It is fluid until it is done.