President Donald Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on the sidelines of the G7 Summit on June 17, 2026, in Evian-les-Bains, France. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON – The White House read to reporters on Wednesday a 14-point memorandum of understanding with Iran aimed at halting the ongoing war and allowing further negotiations, but did not release the exact text.
The 60-day memorandum of understanding outlines the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, funds for sanctions relief and reconstruction of Iran, and a promise to negotiate Iran ending its nuclear program. Senior administration officials say the easing of economic sanctions and sanctions will only come if Iran “behaves well.”
“If we find that they are just reeling us in and in some way intimidating us, we will close the case very quickly and go back to very, very aggressively tightening the screws on them,” a senior administration official, who did not want to be identified, said during a Wednesday afternoon call with reporters.
President Donald Trump told reporters in France that he “may” remain in Europe until the ceremonial signing of the memo, but he doubts it.
“It’s a memorandum of understanding. It’s very important, but maybe it’s not the kind of document I should be signing,” Trump told reporters at the recent news conference of the G7 summit, a meeting of the world’s richest capitalist economies.
Earlier on Wednesday, he told reporters at the G7 summit: “If I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting them and dropping bombs on their heads.”
Trump announced He reached a ceasefire agreement with Iranian officials on Monday to temporarily end a war that had lasted more than 100 days, but the administration did not reveal any part of the agreement until Wednesday. Members of the US Senate he complained they didn’t see the details, and some said they wanted to vote on the final agreement.
Prime Minister of Iran Shehbaz Sharif confirmed in a social media post Monday that an agreement had been reached.
The Iranians asked the United States not to publish the text until the text was finalized, according to a second senior administration official, who added, “it was obviously unfortunate that we were not able to publish it immediately.”
“We’ve tried to align with their internal messaging and internal policies. We’re trying to build trust with them and that’s what they asked us to do, so we agreed to do it.”
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran Seyed Abbas Araghchi warned on social media on June 12, he pushed back against speculation about a deal that has “never been closer” and said details would be made available to the public “in due course.”
Nuclear weapons
The 14-point “Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran,” which a second senior administration official read during the call, declares “an immediate and permanent cessation of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon.”
The White House declined to provide reporters with a written copy of the memorandum of understanding.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did just that not agreed publicly withdraw forces from Lebanon, which has emerged as the second front in the war launched by the United States together with Israel in February.
The United States and Iran have 60 days, “extendable by consent,” to reach a final agreement.
Under the deal, Iran “confirms that it will not acquire or develop nuclear weapons.”
The document requires the US and Iran to agree on how to deal with Iran’s buried stockpiles of enriched uranium, with the minimum solution being to “fluff mix” the material on site under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“The two sides also agreed to discuss the issue of enrichment and other mutually agreed issues related to the nuclear needs of the Islamic Republic of Iran based on the satisfactory framework agreed in the final agreement,” the memorandum of understanding said.
In 2018, Trump pulled The US from the previous nuclear agreement negotiated by the administration of former President Barack Obama.
On Saturday, Obama appeared skeptical of Trump’s nuclear negotiations with Iran.
“It is questionable whether any agreement that emerges will be significantly different or a significant improvement over the agreement we reached and worked on for a long time before we, the United States, withdrew from it,” he said. ABC News“Robin Roberts.
Reopening of the Strait of Hormuz
The agreement also commits the United States to “immediately” begin removing the naval blockade of Iranian ports, with a full and final halt expected to occur within 30 days.
According to an administration official, the United States will also have to withdraw military forces from the vicinity of Iran, which means that American forces will “restore the state of our forces in the region to the state they were in before the conflict began.”
Before the war, there were approximately 40,000 soldiers in the region. This number increased to approximately 50,000 after February 28.
For its part, Iran must “make every effort to ensure the safe passage of commercial vessels free of charge for 60 days from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa,” according to the agreement.
However, the MoU continues: “The movement of merchant ships will begin immediately after considering the need to remove technical and military obstacles, and demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran will begin within 30 days.”
From there, Iranian officials agreed to negotiate with the Sultan of Oman and the Gulf states on a plan for “future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz.”
The war’s de facto closure of the strait shook economies around the world because, before the conflict, 20% of global oil exports flowed uninterrupted through the narrow waterway. At the height of the conflict, oil prices reached $120 a barrel, but fell to about $79 this week.
Article 38 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea declares passage through the straits is a right that should not be hindered, although neither US or Iran are party to an international agreement.
Reconstruction funds amount to $300 billion
In perhaps one of the most “controversial” parts of the memorandum of understanding, Iran could receive up to $300 billion in reconstruction funds, according to a senior official.
A White House official was quick to downplay the prospect of Iran making billions of US dollars.
“Please remember that this does not require us to take any action to ever pay a cent of money to the Iranians (and) to ever contribute money to the reconstruction fund,” the official said.
“All it says is that if we reach a final agreement and if the Iranians behave, we will allow sanctions relief that would allow, for example, the Emiratis to build a power plant in Iran. That’s all it says there. If they do what they have to do, we will allow investment and reconstruction in their country,” the official said.
Additionally, according to the document, once the MoU is signed, the U.S. Treasury Department will immediately issue permits for the export of Iranian crude oil and other petroleum products, as well as related activities, including banking and insurance transactions.
