The Trump administration revealed the full text of the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran on Wednesday, including requirements that Iran downblend its enriched uranium stockpiles under the International Atomic Energy Agency’s supervision and more details on the sequencing of sanctions relief.
Speaking to reporters on background, a pair of senior U.S. officials read the 14-paragraph agreement aloud and provided commentary on its major provisions.
The text differs in substantial ways from versions previously reported by outlets including CNN, Bloomberg and Al-Arabiya, with additional details about what Iran is required to do within 60 days as part of the deal about the Strait of Hormuz and the regime’s nuclear stockpile.
“Upon the signing of this MoU, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days only from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa,” the official read from the text.
Previously reported versions of the text did not make clear that Iran would be barred from charging a toll or fee for passage through the vital shipping lane.
Commenting on the provision, the official said that a subsequent provision requiring dialogue with other Persian Gulf states would foreclose the possibility of Iran charging a toll on global energy supplies.
“The Persian Gulf states will never reach an arrangement that doesn’t permit toll-free access to the Strait of Hormuz for themselves and their industries,” the official told reporters.
The senior officials said that there has been no change to the text since the United States and Iran agreed to it on Sunday and that it had not previously been released at Iran’s request.
The text the official read to reporters also includes concessions on Iran’s nuclear program.
“The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran have agreed to resolve the disposition of stockpiled enriched material pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon, in accordance with the schedule mentioned in paragraph seven, with the minimum methodology to be downblending on site under the supervision of the IAEA,” the official read from paragraph eight of the text.
Paragraph seven addresses sanctions relief and says the United States will “terminate all types of sanctions” against Iran “in an agreed-upon schedule as part of the final deal.”
The two sides are expected to begin negotiations on the “final deal” during the 60-day window of the memorandum of understanding.
Large portions of the text are similar or identical to previously reported versions. What the deal does and does not include will likely continue to prompt criticism from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, as well as Israeli officials.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) posted on social after the text was revealed that it was “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”
“Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future,” Cassidy wrote. “Reagan is rolling over in his grave.”
The deal also makes no mention of Iran’s ballistic missile or drone capabilities and links the cessation of hostilities between the United States and Iran with the Israeli conflict against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war, by signing this MoU, declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” the text says, according to the official.
Two of the most controversial provisions included in the agreement are mentions of a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran and a commitment that the United States will withdraw military forces from the region.
One of the officials said that the $300 billion fund was envisioned as part of a future, final agreement and was contingent on Iran meeting the requirements of the agreement over the next 60 days.
“What it says is that if we get to a final deal, and if the Iranians behave, we will permit the sanctions relief that would allow, for example, the Emiratis to build a power plant in Iran. That’s all it says,” the official told reporters.
The official added that the withdrawal of any U.S. military forces was likewise contingent on the completion of a final deal, and would entail a draw down of U.S. force levels to what existed before the conflict and not a complete removal of U.S. troops.
Commenting on the text, the officials also clarified what forms of sanctions relief Iran could expect under paragraphs seven and eight of the deal.
“It commits us to quite literally nothing,” one of the officials said. “When I see the media saying that they’re going to get all this sanctions relief, the sanctions relief in seven is tied to the nuclear settlement in eight.”
“We are saying the sanctions relief and the nuclear issues are connected, and to the extent that you perform on the nuclear questions, you will get the sanctions relief,” the official said.
Under the agreement, Iran will receive at least one form of immediate U.S. sanctions relief by allowing them to sell oil on the global market without hindrance.
One of the officials argued that existing sanctions on Iranian oil sales ultimately benefit China, which continued to purchase Iranian oil despite the sanctions, and suggested that the Trump administration had planned on removing those sanctions unilaterally.
“We were actually giving China a massive discount on the purchases of petroleum,” the official said. “Regardless of whether we had had ‘Epic Fury,’ regardless of whether we lift a single other sanction, the president of the United States and the entire team agreed that it’s absurd to sanction Iranian oil in such a way that they are still allowed to sell that oil. We just give China a big fat discount.”
The other official said that immediate economic relief to Iran would be “in the single-digit billions” of dollars, while the war had imposed hundreds of billions of dollars of damage on Iran.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance is expected to sign the deal with an Iranian counterpart in Geneva on Friday.
One of the officials said that if it becomes clear that Iran is not making good on the memorandum of understanding, the United States could still walk away from the deal.
“If we think that they’re just dragging us along and kind of bulls***ting us, then we’ll be very quick to pull the plug on it and go back to tightening the screws on them very, very aggressively,” the official said.
U.S. President Donald Trump used blunter terms in describing his options during a press conference at the G7 meeting on Wednesday.
“If it’s not permanent, we will bomb them. They will be bombed,” Trump told reporters. “We’ll probably go back to bombing them until they honor it.”
