{"id":165577,"date":"2026-06-18T00:59:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T00:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/165577\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T00:59:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T00:59:27","slug":"why-trumps-iran-deal-is-little-more-than-a-shopping-list-of-capitulations-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/165577\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Trump\u2019s Iran deal is little more than a shopping list of capitulations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019m the boss,\u201d Donald Trump quipped <\/a>as he swaggered into the G7<\/a> meeting of Western leaders in the French Alps on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Nervous laughter acknowledged the truth in those words. <\/p>\n

But part of this bravado rings hollow against the backdrop of the \u201cgreat deal\u201d with Iran<\/a> that the US<\/a> president has claimed will bring peace<\/a> and security to the entire Middle East. <\/p>\n

On his Truth Social platform, Trump<\/a> described himself as the first US<\/a> president in history to make peace with Iran<\/a>. Despite the growing unpopularity of the sprawling war back in the US, he has repeatedly declared victory. <\/p>\n

But the 14-point plan<\/a> reads more like a shopping list of capitulations than an agreement in which the US has made Iran<\/a> \u201cpay the price\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"USUS president Donald Trump during the G7 Summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, on Wednesday 17 June (Reuters)<\/p>\n

There are also gaping holes where some of the trickiest sticking points have not been addressed. <\/p>\n

Most glaringly absent are details of who will control the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, the vital waterway that Iran has strangled, causing the biggest disruption to energy supplies in modern history. <\/p>\n

Also missing from the plan is any mention of Israel and the future of its military occupation of swathes of Lebanon.<\/p>\n

The memorandum of understanding is set to be formally signed in Switzerland on Friday, triggering a 60-day window to negotiate the final terms.<\/p>\n

The first article of the deal focuses on \u201can immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon\u201d. <\/p>\n

Yet there is no mention of Israel\u2019s ongoing military occupation, and its evacuation orders that cover more than a fifth of Lebanese territory: the most significant obstacle to any hope of ending hostilities there.<\/p>\n

The agreement says the US will lift the naval blockade on Iran within a maximum of 30 days and eventually withdraw all its forces from the surrounding region.<\/p>\n

The US has also committed to lifting all unilateral US sanctions<\/a>, both primary and secondary, on Iran, despite the fact that Trump<\/a> has repeatedly blasted <\/a>former president Barack Obama for doing that. <\/p>\n

This would take place according to a timetable to be agreed as part of the final settlement. <\/p>\n

\"IsraeliIsraeli Merkava tanks driving along a road past destroyed buildings in southern Lebanon on Wednesday 17 June (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n

In the interim, until sanctions are lifted, the US Treasury Department has apparently agreed to issue waivers for exports of Iranian crude oil, petrochemical products and their derivatives<\/a>, \u201cas well as all related services, including banking, insurance and transportation\u201d. <\/p>\n

That would be huge. <\/p>\n

In Article 11, Iran\u2019s frozen and restricted funds and assets, believed to amount to billions of dollars, will also be released and \u201cmade fully available\u201d as negotiations progress towards a final agreement.<\/p>\n

There is also a $300bn rehabilitation fund to rebuild Iran (although unnamed US officials have since told Reuters that none of the cash would come from US government grants and it was effectively a private investment fund). <\/p>\n

In exchange for all this, Iran \u201creaffirms\u201d that it will never produce nuclear weapons<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Reaffirms is an interesting choice of word. Iran has always denied US claims that it was planning to build a nuclear weapon, so this hardly feels like a major concession.<\/p>\n

Article 8 also states that the fate of Iran\u2019s enriched material, or \u201cnuclear dust\u201d as Trump<\/a> likes to call it, will only be addressed in the final agreement. <\/p>\n

\"AnAn Iranian woman mourns her two children who died in a US\/Israeli strike on Minab school in February (Reuters)<\/p>\n

That marks a step back from Trump\u2019s previous promises that the material would be immediately destroyed (possibly even in the US). <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Article 9 says that, pending a final agreement: \u201cIran will maintain the current status quo on its nuclear programme, and the United States will not impose new sanctions and will not deploy additional forces in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maintaining the status quo is far from the decisive victory, or the \u201ccrushing\u201d of Iran, that Trump has repeatedly boasted about.<\/p>\n

The least clear section concerns the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>. Iran has agreed to make arrangements to restore shipping volumes to pre-war levels within 30 days, including de-mining it. <\/p>\n

But despite Trump\u2019s public insistence that Iran will not run the waterway, the deal includes dialogue between Iran and Oman to \u201cdefine the future administration\u201d of the strait, leaving the option open for Iranian control.<\/p>\n

Both sides will be keen to spin the deal as a win for them.<\/p>\n

\"VesselsVessels in the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, on Monday 15 June (Reuters)<\/p>\n

But the essential battlegrounds remain unresolved. And there is a noisy, unpredictable third player in the mix.<\/p>\n

Israel is struggling with Lebanon\u2019s inclusion in the ceasefire. Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> \u2013 on a collision course with his most lucrative ally in the US \u2013 has made clear he does not consider himself bound by the agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe struggle has not ended,\u201d he said in a defiant address on Wednesday, vowing that Israeli troops would remain in southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n

With so much yet to be agreed upon \u2013 including the formal release of an agreed text \u2013 the nagging question still remains. <\/p>\n

What has this war, at a cost of billions to the world, actually achieved?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m the boss,\u201d Donald Trump quipped as he swaggered into the G7 meeting of Western leaders in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[12474,12475,5084,34,12473,36],"class_list":["post-165577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-bestof","tag-essential","tag-horizontal","tag-iran","tag-topix","tag-war"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116768405286511061","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}