US and Iran sign ceasefire agreement, details remain unclear

EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France/DUBAI/JERUSALEM - President Donald Trump said on Monday a preliminary agreement to end the war in the Gulf has been signed by the U.S. and Iran, though details have yet to be made public and both countries said a permanent truce is yet to be negotiated.

The agreement would extend a tenuous ceasefire announced in April by another 60 days and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively blocked since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February.

Negotiators would address difficult issues like the future of Iran’s nuclear program during the next phase. 

“The deal’s all signed,” Trump said after he arrived in France for a summit of the G7 group of big economies. He said Vice President JD Vance would attend a formal signing ceremony in Geneva on Friday.

Oil prices fell to their lowest level since March 10, shortly after the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman, cut off one-fifth of the world’s oil trade.

The deal is the most significant step yet to resolve the conflict, which has killed at least 7,000 people, mostly in Iran and Lebanon, and upended global energy markets.

But much about the agreement remains unknown, and whether its provisions differ from the April ceasefire was unclear. 

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on social media that the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding (MOU) was an “important step” toward stopping the fighting but noted a final agreement for a lasting truce “has yet to take shape.”

Vance told CNN that the signed memorandum was only about 1-1/2 pages “and so it is a very general document.” Details will be released over the next two days, U.S. officials said. Vance said it included “a very significant sanctions relief package” for Iran.

U.S. and Iranian officials say it could eventually deliver substantial economic benefits to Iran by lifting sanctions, unfreezing foreign assets and setting up a $300 billion reconstruction fund, paid for by neighboring Gulf states, which host U.S. military bases.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iran would have to satisfy U.S. demands never to build a nuclear weapon and cut off support for militias like Hezbollah in Lebanon in order to get those benefits. 

Iran agreed to sharply curtail its nuclear program in a deal signed in 2015 with the U.S. and other countries. Trump withdrew the U.S. from that accord during his first term as president. That agreement allowed Iran to regain billions of dollars in frozen assets, which Trump has frequently derided as sending “pallets of cash” to Iran.

Trump appears to have achieved little of what he said he intended when he launched strikes on Iran with Israel on February 28. Iran’s theocratic government remains in place, while his demands that Iran dismantle its ballistic missile program and end support for regional militias like Hezbollah remain unmet.

The new agreement also does not resolve the fate of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, which Trump says he wants destroyed or removed. 

Iranian officials, who have always denied intending to build a nuclear weapon, say they have given up little by agreeing to resume the diplomatic discussions with Trump officials over the nuclear program that were interrupted in February by Trump’s decision to launch the war.

While the latest agreement lifts Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, that only restores the prewar status quo, and shippers say traffic will only restart once safety is assured. 

Iran has suggested it will retain control with Oman over the strait. The U.S. said the strait will be open toll-free for 60 days and it would expect that provision to be part of a final agreement as well.

Netanyahu says he ‘stood firm’

The fighting between U.S. ally Israel and the Iran-allied Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, which has uprooted 1.2 million people, remains a sticking point. 

Iran has said the deal requires a full cessation of hostilities there, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would keep its forces in southern Lebanon and would retain the right to respond to Hezbollah attacks.

“Iran wanted us to withdraw from it, but I stood firm,” he said at a news conference, where he acknowledged that he and Trump have had their differences over the conflict. Israel has not directly participated in the peace talks with Iran.

A U.S. official said Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, which it invaded in March after Hezbollah joined the war, was not a condition of the deal. Disagreement over whether Lebanon was included was also a point of contention in the April ceasefire agreement.

Security sources said on Monday that fighting had tamped down in Lebanon after the agreement was announced but had not ceased entirely.

Lebanese state media reported that an Israeli drone struck a car in the southern Lebanese town of Kfar Tebnit, killing the driver. Netanyahu said Israeli forces had killed four “militants.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Israeli attacks must stop immediately.

Privately, Israeli officials’ views of the deal have been negative. One senior official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the agreement was “terrible for Israel,” and that this assessment was shared throughout the government from Netanyahu down.

Congress must review Iran agreement, senators say

Congress needs to be able to review the agreement between the Trump administration and Tehran that is intended to end the Iran war, senators in both parties said Monday.

No actual text has been released — making it impossible to parse who’s telling the truth and leaving lawmakers clamoring for more details.

“Trump must release the details publicly, brief Congress immediately and end this war for good,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement Monday.

Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a staunch Iran hawk who has been skeptical of negotiations, expressed concern that “Iran’s view of the agreement seems different” from what the American negotiating team is claiming.

“Under our law, any nuclear deal with Iran will be sent to Congress for review and a vote. I look forward to reviewing the final product and I believe it is imperative that the architect of the deal, Vice President Vance and his negotiating partners, be part of the process in presenting the final deal to Congress,” Graham wrote on social media Sunday, adding that “time will tell” whether the deal is acceptable.

Graham was referring to the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, or INARA, which Congress passed in 2015 to ensure lawmakers had a say in the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.

While the impetus for the law was the Obama administration deal, it applies to any nuclear agreement with Iran. Under INARA, a deal must be transmitted to Congress within five days of being reached, and Congress then has 30 days to vote on a resolution of disapproval.

In the meantime, lawmakers are in the dark.

“I don’t think even the people who follow this stuff closely up here know that much about it either,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Monday afternoon, adding that he himself didn’t know enough to make a judgment about the deal.

Thune also said he expects administration officials to brief senators on the MOU since “for sure our members are going to have a lot of questions about it.”

“I know there is probably some expectation that there may be a vote at some point, whether that’s on a resolution of disapproval or something, we’ll see,” he added, in apparent reference to INARA.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., brushed off concerns about the MOU not being sent to Congress yet, but made clear he believes lawmakers will have to vote on the final deal “if they want it to be something other than a political agreement.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who is retiring from the Senate at the end of this Congress, expressed hope that a “more profound agreement” can be reached after the MOU, but said he is “of course” concerned the preliminary deal hasn’t been shared with Congress.

“I mean, if it’s a secret deal, then how can I take it seriously,” he said.

While Democrats have been calling for an end to the war since it started, they too are skeptical of the MOU.

“If the terms they’re discussing are real, it’s essentially a surrender to Iran on Iran’s terms,” Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., told reporters Monday. “Now, I will support that surrender, because this crowd of incompetent national security leaders is making the situation worse every day. I think the only thing we can do is end the war.”

Democrats have been trying to force an end to the war through a war powers resolution. The Senate advanced a joint resolution last month but has yet to take the next vote on the measure as the sponsor, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., mulls the best approach.

The House adopted a similar Iran war powers resolution earlier this month, giving Kaine the option of pressing forward with his measure or calling up the House version.

On Monday, Kaine told reporters he was still deciding which measure to call up, but that he expects a vote on one of them later this week. The MOU is not changing his decision-making, he added.

“I think actually a cessation might help us get some more votes on the theory, let’s not restart again unless we all think this is the right thing to do,” Kaine said.

In a statement earlier Monday, Kaine also reminded the administration of its obligations under INARA.

“The details of any agreement with the Iranian regime, including any financial or sanctions relief, must be carefully scrutinized,” Kaine said in the statement. “I echo my Republican colleagues in reminding the Trump administration that any comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran must, by law, be submitted to Congress for review before it can take effect.”

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