Axios: Here's the Deal Iran Still Won't Accept Yet

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Yesterday, Donald Trump announced that Iran had finally approved a framework for negotiating an end to the war, at "the highest level of Iranian leadership." In the hours since, Iran has not yet signaled an agreement, although the IRGC mouthpieces have notably also not announced a full rejection either. While Trump has made plans for sending J.D. Vance to sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a ceremony in Europe, even the mediators are questioning whether a deal exists yet:

Trump said Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had signed off on the plan, which he said would be completed in coming days, paving the way for additional talks on Iran’s nuclear program.
Tehran said it hadn’t decided.
“Iran hasn’t reached a final conclusion about the agreement,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said, according to state media. “We will announce it when we reach a conclusion.” ...
Qatar’s leader, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, didn’t confirm Trump’s claim that a deal had been agreed to but said mediation efforts had “led to progress in the proposals under discussion within the framework of ongoing negotiations.”
Trump has on several previous occasions indicated that a deal is imminent, only for talks to later stall. He didn’t discuss the terms of any new agreement during his White House briefing, or whether previous sticking points had been overcome.

Let's rephrase that for accuracy. Trump has, on several previous occasions, indicated that a deal was imminent, only for the Iranian regime to play its usual Tehran Two-Step. The Iranian regime exhausts its negotiating partners by bargaining in bad faith, relying on mediators to soft-peddle their intransigence and seek out further concessions from the West to close gaps that suddenly appear at the eleventh hour of talks. When the IRGC/mullahs sense that their opponents have really sold themselves into the "achievement" of a deal, that's when they really kick their heels up in the Tehran Two-Step, also known as the Hamas Hokey Pokey.

By this time, Trump should be familiar with this pattern. Perhaps the latest round of bombing informed the IRGC that Trump no longer wants to dance, but that doesn't mean the music has stopped on their negotiating strategy.

As I mentioned briefly yesterday, the big production Trump staged in calling off the strikes at the last moment might be a negotiating tactic, too. He might be sowing confusion among the regime leaders about what really happened in talks, especially between the IRGC hardliners and their quasi-civilian counterparts. Trump could also be offering an off-ramp – again – from armed conflict by pushing them into a framework that, by itself, doesn't commit Iran or the US to much up front. That, along with the naval blockade that clearly has the Iranian regime on the existential ropes, might tempt them to accept American terms with promises of access to economic opportunities.

So what's in the MOU? The IRGC has its own propaganda out already:

Iran’s Mehr news agency publishes the purported text of the draft agreement with Trump. It will keep the Strait of Hormuz under Iranian control, will promise Iran $300 billion in reconstruction money in addition to an immediate cash transfer of $24 billion, a suspension of…
— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) June 12, 2026

Click through if you want to read incompetent propaganda. If this were the deal Trump offered, Iran would have already signed it. They wouldn't have their media mouthpieces offering diffident takes on the MOU. The IRGC needs the blockade lifted as quickly as possible, so if Trump really offered them everything they wanted, the deal would already have been concluded.

So, again, what's really in the MOU? Axios' Barak Ravid reports that it hasn't actually changed much over the last few weeks:

The U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding President Trump claims will soon be signed calls for the Strait of Hormuz to reopen immediately without tolls and for Iran to receive sanctions relief based on compliance, according to a diplomat from one of the mediating countries and a U.S. official.
Why it matters: The MOU would extend the ceasefire for 60 days, including in Lebanon, during which time nuclear negotiations would be held. The text includes a framework for addressing Iran's enriched uranium stockpile, though any action on Iran's nuclear program would depend on a second, more detailed accord. ...
Breaking it down: Under the MOU, Iran would make certain commitments on its nuclear program — first and foremost to never acquire a nuclear weapon and to resolve the standoff around its enriched uranium.

According to the same diplomat, the MOU specifically lays out a detailed agreement on eliminating Iran's stocks of highly enriched uranium, although still ambiguous as to the method. He told Ravid that the language "satisfies all U.S. requirements." It also requires Iran to relinquish all claims to international waters in the Strait of Hormuz, with the US ending the naval blockade as Iran demonstrates its commitment to that requirement. Trump agrees to loop the war in Lebanon into this MOU, but that's been the case all along, much to the frustration of Benjamin Netanyahu, who understands the nature of the enemy better than anyone. It's not a new concession by an means.

In other words, this is pretty much the deal Trump has offered all along, with some adjustments for sanctions relief. This time, the offer came with fresh bombings, which may be why Iran got the mediators back together to discuss the MOU a little more thoroughly this week. Trump is not going to cede control of the Strait, nor leave the "nuclear dust" with the IRGC, at the end of these four months of conflict. This week, he (finally) demonstrated that he'd rather go back to war than to allow Iran to control the region.

Perhaps the IRGC will realize that the music has stopped. Perhaps Trump really has grown tired of the Tehran Two-Step. If that's true of both sides, then there's a small chance the MOU will hold up. Don't take off your dancing shoes yet, however.

Editor's Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.

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