Trump’s Iran deal triggers speculation, skepticism, market bump: 5 takeaways

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The agreement between the U.S. and Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and kick-start 60 days of nuclear negotiations is set to be signed in person Friday, but it’s still unclear what’s in it.

Senior U.S. officials told reporters Monday that the memorandum of understanding (MOU), signed digitally over the weekend, is only the first step and that “real technical discussions” will begin later this week and be led by Vice President Vance.

The officials said details of the agreement will be released publicly within the next couple of days, while President Trump said it would come out “sometime after Friday,” stoking debate and speculation over commitments and concessions on both sides.

Trump and Vance have already digitally signed the MOU that was also signed by Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the country’s lead negotiator.

The U.S. has repeatedly said that Iran has made guarantees that it would not have a nuclear weapon, but it appears that details regarding the handover of its current stockpile of enriched uranium will be punted to future talks.

A senior U.S. official described the deal as having “two pathways”: either Iran doesn’t cooperate and stays financially weak and without the ability to rebuild its nuclear program, or the country complies with the deal and benefits economically while also making assurances that no nuclear weapons will be built.

“It’s a win either way for the United States,” the official said.

Here are five key takeaways on what we know so far:

Iran hawks clamor for details

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) shared his concern Sunday that Iran and the U.S. do not seem to be on the same page on what the agreement entails.

“I am somewhat concerned that Iran’s view of the agreement seems different than what the American negotiating team is claiming,” he wrote on social media.

Victoria Coates, vice president of national security at the Heritage Foundation and a member of Trump’s National Security Council during his first administration, said she hopes the administration sticks to keeping sanctions relief contingent on Iran following through with no nuclear weapons.

“That has to come first and the burden has to be on them, otherwise, I worry we’re going to get into another one of these situations, as the president said, where they’re tap-tap-tapping us along,” Coates told The Hill.

A number of Senate Republicans on Monday said they were withholding comment on the deal until they knew more about its terms.

“I hope we get more details about it before Friday,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters.

“My understanding of what it entails — again, not having seen anything — I think the issues are going to be compliance and how you’re going to enforce that and what are the financial incentives the Iranians are going to have from our country.” Thune said.

Delivers economic relief for both sides

Iran has said it would only enter the next phase of negotiations if assets were unfrozen, according to reports, but U.S. officials maintain that zero dollars have been unfrozen.

U.S. officials have maintained that no money would be released to Iran without commitments made by Iran.

“The more that the Iranians are willing to work with us on their nuclear program, on verifying that they’re not building a nuclear weapon, on not funding radicalism and terrorism in the region, the more that they’re going to be welcomed into the world economy through a combination of sanctions relief and other economic measures,” an official said.

While another said the U.S. is “prepared to release frozen funds [and] relieve sanctions.”

“And we’ll do some small gestures of that in the beginning, if they make some small gestures to us that show that they’re willing to meet their commitments as well,” the U.S. official said.

Still, the deal would reportedly waive U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil exports at least through the 60-day negotiating window, offering crucial income for the cash-strapped regime.

Reopening the Strait of Hormuz will also help alleviate the soaring energy costs in the U.S. and elsewhere, which were set to get worse with global inventories of oil and gas quickly dropping.

In the U.S., stocks rose and oil prices fell Monday over news of the tentative deal and the reopening of the strait.

The price of West Texas Intermediate crude, the benchmark for North American markets, was down nearly 5 percent to $80.94 as of just before 3:30 p.m. Brent crude, the benchmark for global markets, was down more than 4.4 percent to roughly $83.

Trump said Monday while on his way to the Group of Seven meeting in France that ships were “starting to move, many loaded up with Oil” through the strait.

Draws Obama deal comparisons

The president has consistently hit at the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that was negotiated under former President Obama to try and tame Iran’s nuclear program back in 2015.

He has called it a “horrible” plan that was bringing Iran closer to having a nuclear weapon and allowed Iran to get a hold of “billions, and billions of dollars.”

But Trump’s initial deal with Iran is already drawing comparisons to the agreement he pulled out of, as both use the suspension of sanctions and unfreezing assets as a way to incentivize Iran to make concessions on its nuclear program, without giving it up entirely.

“We discussed the possibility of releasing frozen funds, sanctions relief, you know, a big $300 billion fund to rebuild their country, and all of these things are going to be tied to performance,” a U.S. official told reporters.

Obama, for his part, said Monday it’s “doubtful that any agreement that arises is going to be significantly different, or in a significant improvement from the deal that we had in the first place.”

Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen, a conservative figure with a line to the president, criticized Trump’s deal as “exactly like Obama’s nuclear deal.”

“I’m anxious to see what the details of the deal are and what gets negotiated, but I’m concerned,” Thiessen said on Fox News.

Israel digs in on Lebanon

While the MOU would include Lebanon in the ongoing ceasefire, according to Pakistani officials, it does not require Isreal to entirely withdraw its troops from the country, where it has been fighting with Hezbollah, according to the senior administration officials.

“The deal is a ceasefire, and it will not be a one-way ceasefire, meaning that if Iran is not able to control Hezbollah, and if they attack Israeli positions or Israeli towns, Israel will have the right to defend themselves and respond,” the official told reporters.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Monday that the country will not pull back Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from parts of southern Lebanon it has occupied in recent months. He also warned that if Iran hits Israel over its war in Lebanon, the IDF will strike Tehran with “full force.”

Despite the MOU, the firing has continued in the area.

The Israeli drone strike killed one individual in southern Lebanon, the country’s National News Agency reported.

Hezbollah, designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government, fired anti-tank missiles and mortar shells at IDF soldiers, the Israeli military said, adding that rockets were intercepted.

On Sunday, after the strike on Beirut, which nearly imploded the potential peace deal, Trump assailed the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, telling Axios “he has no f—ing judgement.”

Trump said on Monday, sitting beside French President Emmanuel Macron, that the U.S. wants to see if “if we can straighten out the Lebanon thing,” adding that it “shouldn’t be tough.”

“Hezbollah, we have to have a little talk with them,” the president said.

Iran eyes tolling in Strait of Hormuz after 60 days

Iran has said that it would not try to collect tolls on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz for the 60 days of negotiations, but it’s unclear what will happen after that.

The semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported that the MOU would make sure that the Iranian and Omani governments administer the “maritime navigation services” in the key passage way. The outlet, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Tehran would begin charging vessels fees after the 60-day period.

A senior U.S. official told reporters on Monday that there will not be any charges or tolls for ships passing through the waterway during the discussion over the MOU.

“So the goal here is to create a mechanism that makes it impossible that it will ever happen closed again and done in a way that obviously protects all the different interests in the region, and so there are a lot of different ideas for what’s been discussed, including just going back to what it was before, but there are some other options that people in the region may like better,” the official said during the briefing.

Trump has said that the Strait of Hormuz is open and encourages shipping companies to have their vessels transit the waterway.

“Our expectation is that the strait is going to be opened in a toll-free way for the long term, and that’s the sort of thing that we’re going to figure out in these technical negotiations,” Vance said in an interview on CNBC Monday morning.

Currently, about 25 ships are passing through the strait and the number is expected to reach 40 to 50 a day “pretty quickly,” a senior administration official said.

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