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The 14-point memorandum was signed electronically on 18 June; the Switzerland ceremony was downgraded to a shrug. Its immediate provisions reopen the strait, lift the blockade, and grant Iran fossil-fuel sanctions waivers. Its deferred provisions bundle ‘strait management’ with the nuclear programme and the regional proxies in the 60-day window. This post argues that chaining a tractable maritime-administrative question to the most failure-prone file in the relationship is a mistake — and a correctable one.

On 14 June 2026, Trump declared the Iran deal ‘complete’; it was signed digitally, with a Geneva ceremony set for 19 June. The strait reopens, the blockade lifts, the war halts. But the deal defers the institutional core: Vance says ‘toll-free,’ Iran says fees will be charged and ‘we need time to discuss.’ This post reads the completed deal as the resolution of the operational question and the deferral of the institutional one.

On 23 May 2026, Trump said an Iran deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz was ‘largely negotiated.’ The contemplated MOU lifts the blockade and opens a 60-day nuclear window — but its ‘unrestricted navigation’ language can be read two ways: UNCLOS free transit, or merely the end of the US blockade with the PGSA arrangement intact. Iran’s Fars response insists the strait ‘remains under Iranian management.’ This post reads the gap that the language points conceal.