Ricardo Howard
The Trump Iran truce reached last month is neither dead nor functioning, caught in a legal and diplomatic limbo after a two day exchange of airstrikes and Washington's decision to reimpose oil sanctions on Tehran. President Donald Trump himself declared the arrangement "over" on Wednesday, even as neither government has formally torn up the memorandum of understanding that took effect June 18.
That memorandum was supposed to accomplish three things: halt all hostilities, deliver sanctions relief to Iran, and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to normal shipping traffic. None of those goals has been met in full. Yet Mona Yacoubian, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, argues the deal is unlikely to collapse entirely. "The MOU is unraveling," she said, "but I don't think it will completely collapse, because I don't think either side has an interest in returning to full conflict."
Why the Trump Iran Truce Is Stuck Between Life and Death
Four months and change after Iran's former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was assassinated on the conflict's opening day, his weeklong funeral concluded Thursday with his burial. Qatari mediators and Trump had floated the idea that renewed talks might follow the funeral's end. By Thursday, though, no side involved seemed to believe that timeline still held.
Washington and Tehran have spent the past week trading accusations of ceasefire violations, and the latest round of strikes, paired with the revival of Trump's sanctions campaign, has pushed the standoff into more dangerous territory. The US Treasury revoked its waiver on sanctioned Iranian oil on Tuesday, a waiver it had only granted last month, citing attacks on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Brett Erickson, managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors, said that move stripped away leverage the US had been holding in reserve for negotiations. His assessment was blunt: "This MOU, as it is currently written, is dead."
Trump's own language at this week's NATO summit in Turkey matched that pessimism. He called Iranian officials "scum" and dismissed further talks as a "waste of time," though he left the door open for his envoys to pursue a deal on their own terms. Tom Warrick, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, doubts the existing memorandum survives as the template for whatever comes next. "I don't know if the memorandum is going to be the basis going forward," he said, predicting both governments will demand revisions that vindicate their version of events.
Hormuz Traffic and the Oil Sanctions Question
Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz nearly stopped altogether on Thursday, according to tracking cited in the dispute, underscoring how far apart Washington and Tehran remain on basic terms. Iran maintains it controls the passage; US Central Command rejected that claim outright on Thursday, stating flatly that
