US-Iran Deal 2026: Terms, Risks and Real Prospects

"Largely Negotiated": The Proposed US-Iran Deal and Why Its Prospects Are Far Less Certain Than Trump Suggests

May 28, 2026. President Trump told reporters on Saturday that a deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz was "largely negotiated" and would be announced shortly. He described it as among the most important agreements his administration had pursued, and suggested the announcement was imminent. By Monday, no announcement had been made. By Tuesday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry was clarifying the precise scope of what had and had not been agreed. By Wednesday, the same gap between what Trump said and what Iran confirmed had reappeared in a form that will be familiar to anyone who has followed the Islamabad talks from April.

The deal is real enough to be reported in detail by Axios, CNN, CBS News, and Reuters. It is also fragile enough that Iran has not confirmed all of its terms, that neither Trump nor Khamenei has formally signed anything, and that the most consequential questions — Iran's enriched uranium stockpile, frozen assets, Lebanon — remain unresolved. The distance between "largely negotiated" and "signed, sealed, implemented" is the distance between diplomatic momentum and a binding agreement, and in the history of US-Iran relations, that distance has swallowed multiple deals that seemed further along than this one.

What the Draft Memorandum of Understanding Actually Contains

The agreement that the United States and Iran are close to signing involves a sixty-day ceasefire extension during which the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened, Iran would be able to freely sell oil on international markets, and negotiations would be held on curbing Iran's nuclear program. The draft memorandum of understanding includes commitments from Iran to never pursue nuclear weapons and to negotiate over a suspension of its uranium enrichment program and the removal of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

According to two regional officials with knowledge of the ongoing diplomacy, the draft proposal includes a sixty-day ceasefire extension, a commitment to ending all military operations on every front, including Lebanon, and an affirmation from Iran that it will not develop nuclear weapons and will dispose of its enriched uranium stockpile. The mechanism by which that disposal would occur is still to be settled by both sides.

A senior US official confirmed that Iran had agreed in principle to two specific elements: opening the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a lifting of the US blockade on Iranian ports and ships, and disposing of its stockpile of enriched uranium. These are the elements that gave Trump sufficient confidence to tell reporters the deal was "largely negotiated."

The structural architecture, as reported, follows a phased approach that Iran's Foreign Ministry itself confirmed. The agreement includes a memorandum of understanding as a first phase, with broader talks to follow within thirty to sixty days. This is essentially a framework for a framework — an agreement to negotiate the substantive issues rather than a resolution of those issues themselves.

What Is Not Yet Agreed: The Hard Problems

Iran has not yet agreed to all the terms of the draft proposal. The gaps between the two sides on the most consequential questions are not minor technical details — they are the core of what any durable agreement would require.

The enriched uranium stockpile is the central unresolved issue. Iran currently holds hundreds of kilograms of uranium enriched to sixty percent purity — well above the levels permitted under the 2015 JCPOA and approaching weapons-grade material. The draft MOU commits Iran to disposing of this stockpile, but the mechanism for disposal has not been agreed. The two most discussed options are transferring the material to a third country — Russia and the United Arab Emirates have both been mentioned in this context — and diluting it to lower enrichment levels that would make it less immediately usable for weapons purposes. Both options have political complications on the Iranian domestic side, where hardliners have opposed any arrangement that appears to surrender the country's nuclear achievements under military pressure.

Frozen assets represent the second major unresolved question. Iran has been pushing for the release of billions of dollars in assets frozen under US sanctions. The Trump administration's position on this has varied across different phases of the negotiation and different spokespeople. Some American officials have suggested partial asset relief as part of a phased deal; others have maintained that no sanctions relief occurs until Iran's nuclear program is verifiably constrained.

Lebanon is the third complication. Whether the conflict in Lebanon will end as part of the US-Iran arrangement is a key sticking point. Iran's proxy relationships with Hezbollah in Lebanon are among the most politically sensitive aspects of any comprehensive deal — for Iran's domestic hardliners, who regard Hezbollah as a strategic asset, and for Israel, which has its own conditions for any settlement that affect the Lebanese theater.

How the Deal Emerged: The Long Road From Muscat to the Draft MOU

The current negotiations are the product of a diplomatic process that began more than a year ago, was interrupted by military escalation, and has been conducted across multiple formats and venues.

The first round of formal talks between the United States and Iran began on April 12, 2025, in Muscat, Oman, following a letter from Trump to Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei. Those talks proceeded through multiple rounds in Muscat and Rome through mid-June 2025, establishing the basic framework for nuclear-focused discussions.

The second round began in Geneva on February 6, 2026, and ended when the United States and Israel launched large-scale strikes on Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure on February 28, 2026 — initiating what has been characterized as the Twelve-Day War and the broader Iran war that followed.

The military phase compressed rather than eliminated the diplomatic channel. Pakistan, which had been building relationships on both sides, stepped in as mediator. The ceasefire agreed on April 8, 2026, was Pakistan's initiative — Tehran initially rejected a forty-five-day phased ceasefire framework, proposing its own ten-point peace plan instead. The ceasefire that was eventually agreed has been violated by both sides since its announcement, but it created the operational space within which the current draft MOU was developed.

The American negotiating team has been led by Steve Witkoff as special envoy, alongside Michael Anton, CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper, and, at various stages, Jared Kushner. The Iranian side has been led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi

The Strait of Hormuz: Why This Specific Deal Has Global Consequences

The centrality of the Strait of Hormuz in this negotiation is not incidental. The strait is approximately fifty-four kilometers wide at its narrowest point and is the only maritime route by which tankers can exit the Persian Gulf into the open ocean. Approximately twenty percent of the world's oil trade and a significant share of global LNG exports pass through it.

Iran's closure of the strait following the February 2026 military strikes sent oil prices to their highest levels in several years, contributing directly to the inflation pressures visible in economies from the United States to Western Europe and destabilizing energy markets that had only recently stabilized from the disruptions of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The strain on American air defense interceptor stocks — which Zelensky's letter to Trump and Congress specifically flagged — is a direct downstream consequence of the resource demands created by military operations in a theater that requires intensive air defense in both offensive and force protection modes.

The economic logic of reopening the Strait is thus independent of any judgment about the broader geopolitical merits of the deal. Every day the strait remains closed costs the global economy in ways that are measurable and cumulative. This creates genuine pressure on both sides to reach an agreement — and it is why Trump described the deal as imminent despite the unresolved issues that remain.

Iran's Domestic Politics: The Real Veto Point

In any nuclear agreement with Iran, the most important question is not whether American negotiators can reach a satisfactory text — the Trump administration's interagency process has proven capable of generating proposals — but whether any agreement can survive Iran's domestic approval process. That process involves not just the Foreign Ministry negotiators but the Supreme Leader Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leadership, and the hardline faction in the Iranian parliament that has consistently opposed any nuclear concessions framed as surrender under military pressure.

The current negotiations present Iran's leadership with a genuine dilemma. The economic cost of continued closure of the strait and continued sanctions is substantial — Iran's economy was under severe stress before the February 2026 military strikes, and the combination of sanctions, blockade, and war damage has compounded that stress considerably. But agreeing to dispose of the enriched uranium stockpile under terms that will be publicly visible inside Iran creates the political narrative that Iran bowed to American military pressure — a narrative that the hardline faction can exploit regardless of whatever substantive concessions the United States offers in return.

On April 22, US officials indicated that Trump had given Iran three to five days to engage in negotiations and resolve alleged internal divisions within the Iranian government — an unusually explicit acknowledgment that the primary obstacle to progress was not the negotiating positions of the two sides but the factional dynamics within the Iranian system.

Prospects: The Honest Assessment

The deal is closer to conclusion than any US-Iran nuclear agreement has been since the JCPOA in 2015. The MOU framework gives both sides something they can characterize as a win in their domestic environments: Iran gets the blockade lifted and the ability to sell oil, the United States gets the Strait open and a commitment to nuclear negotiations. The phased structure delays the hardest questions rather than resolving them immediately, which reduces the immediate political costs on both sides.

The risks are substantial in both directions. On the Iranian side, the hardline faction has the capacity to prevent ratification or implementation of any agreement that Khamenei ultimately approves only reluctantly. History suggests that Iranian agreements tend to hold only when they have genuine support from the Supreme Leader rather than tactical acquiescence. The signals from Khamenei on the current proposal have been mixed.

On the American side, Trump's record on Iran agreements is a direct liability. He withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, calling it the worst deal ever made. Any deal he now agrees to is structurally vulnerable to the same kind of second-guessing and reversal — either by Trump himself if domestic politics shift, or by a future administration that judges the terms inadequate. Iran's negotiators have watched the JCPOA's fate and understand that a deal with America may not survive the next American election.

The most likely scenario, based on the current state of reporting, is a signed MOU in the near term that reopens the Strait, lifts the blockade, and begins the sixty-day negotiating period on nuclear terms. This would be a genuine and significant diplomatic achievement — stopping the economic hemorrhage of the closed Strait and creating a framework for addressing the nuclear question. Whether the sixty-day talks produce a durable nuclear agreement is a different and considerably more uncertain question.

Trump said the deal was "largely negotiated." In this context, largely means the easy part. The hard part is still ahead.