Trump Iran Deal Looking Even Worse

In addition to handing Iran $300 billion in reparations, Donald Trump’s surrender to Iran allows Iran to keep its uranium and immediately resume exporting oil freely. More Republicans are openly criticizing that deal as really bad foreign policy:

“Reagan is rolling over in his grave,” said Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy on Wednesday, referring to the former president Trump admires.

“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.

“Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions, and 13 [US] service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped.

“This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades,” he added, after the U.S. and Iran signed the interim memorandum of understanding.

Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under the first Trump administration, asked why Washington appeared to be offering to help rebuild Iran as part of the deal, with Trump still presenting the outcome as a victory.

“This regime chants death to America, murders our troops, and attempts to assassinate Americans on U.S. soil,” she wrote on X.

“They believe they have an obligation to destroy us. Now, we plan to unlock billions of dollars and lift sanctions, with the promise of even more money.”

…Texas senator Ted Cruz echoed the thought, telling the Daily Wire: “History teaches that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is a bad idea.

“Under the terms of what’s been released, somewhere between $10 billion and $30 billion will flow to the Ayatollah immediately before they make even a single nuclear concession.”

Trump’s former vice president Mike Pence also issued a rare criticism of his former boss, arguing the Memorandum of Understanding “does smack of the kind of appeasement that our administration rejected in the Obama-Iran nuclear deal”.

“I would urge the President to take a step back, continue the blockade and pursue a negotiated settlement that commits Iran to dismantling their nuclear program, dismantling this missile program, ends support for terrorist proxies and opens the strait.

“Failing that, we should let our Armed Forces finish the job on our terms,” he wrote on social media [James C. Reynolds, “‘Worst Foreign Policy Blunder in Decades’: Republicans Turn on Trump over Iran Deal,” The Independent, 2026.06.18].

Longtime diplomat Elliott Abrams, who worked for Reagan, Bush 2, and Trump, says our longtime ally Israel and the rest of us have all sorts of reasons not to like Trump’s deal with the ayatollah:

First, Israel wanted to end the Iranian nuclear weapons program. The agreement will allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium at some level, even if there is a temporary moratorium. Moreover, though Iran must give up or down blend its 60 percent enriched uranium, it may be able to keep very large amounts of uranium enriched to lower levels.

Second, Iran successfully linked this agreement with events in Lebanon, which is a defeat and great worry for Israel. Like Lebanon’s elected government, Israelis want Iran to butt out of Lebanon, but it seems that the agreement instead calls for an end to Israeli action there. Israelis believe the United States is tying their hands while Iran will continue to support Hezbollah, covertly if necessary. When Hezbollah fighters try to return to southern Lebanon and border areas—without initially firing a shot—they worry that any action against Hezbollah will create a crisis between the Israeli government and Trump’s administration.

Third, the removal of all sanctions on Iran and release of billions of dollars in frozen funds is of grave concern to Israelis. That could mean there are more resources available for Iran’s proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Shia militias in Iraq because the agreement says nothing to stop this. It also remains silent on the Iranian missile program, which the recent war showed is extremely dangerous for Israel.

Finally, those financial resources will extend the life of the regime. In fact, the language that Trump is now using about the regime is friendly—at the exact moment when he is harshly criticizing Israel’s prime minister for actions in Lebanon. Far from supporting Iranians who want regime change, it seems that Trump now wants to work with the Iranian regime, legitimizing it despite its conduct (for example, killing thousands of protesting Iranians in January and attacking the Gulf Arab nations during the war). In fact, some leaks about the agreement say the United States will pledge not to “interfere in the internal affairs” of Iran, which means zero support for democrats there. Remembering U.S. support for people like the human rights campaigners Andrei Sakharov and Anatoly Scharansky in the Soviet Union, this pledge would be a complete abandonment of the democracy movement among Iranians.

While many Israelis are critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and will vote against him in the upcoming election, the complete change in tone in Washington about a regime that still calls for “Death to Israel” deeply concerns Israelis. They fear it means that for the remainder of his term, Trump will be more interested in protecting his agreement than in protecting Israel [Elliott Abrams, one of five essays in “Trump’s Iran Deal Reopens the Strait. Much Remains to Be Done,” Council on Foreign Relations, 2026.06.18].

And like Trump’s $14.2M Reflecting Pool paint job, the deal is already peeling apart:

The first peace talks between the United States and Iran were postponed Friday, as Vice President JD Vance canceled his planned travel to Switzerland and intense new Israeli strikes in Lebanon cast doubts on the deal to end the war.

The escalation in Lebanon came just days after the interim U.S.-Iran agreement was signed and as the two sides were set to sit down for their first negotiations to agree a lasting conclusion to the conflict started by the U.S. and Israel in late February.

The talks that were set to take place in the Swiss Alps were temporarily postponed following the deadly Israeli strikes, a regional diplomat with knowledge of the situation told NBC News.

Tehran asked for guarantees that hostilities in Lebanon will end, as outlined in the deal signed with Washington, and mediators are currently working to resolve the issue, the diplomat said.

The talks were meant to launch a 60-day period of negotiations to resolve key long-term issues and ensure a permanent end to the war.

Switzerland’s foreign ministry confirmed early Friday that the planned talks between the U.S., Iran, Qatar and Pakistan would not take place in the mountaintop resort of Bürgenstock [Yuliya Talmazan and Keir Simmons, “U.S.–Iran Talks Postponed as Vance Cancels Trip and Israel Intensifies Strikes in Southern Lebanon,” NBC News, 2026.06.19].

Senator John Thune maintains that the Iran deal is “a step in the right direction“. But these shaky capitulation to Iran’s agenda just shows America’s weakness under Trump’s doddering leadership.