The art of the incomplete deal: To open the strait, Trump had to leave the hard issues for later

May 25, 2026 — 5:30pm

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Washington: The temporary agreement that the Trump administration announced with Iran this weekend isn’t a peace deal. It isn’t a nuclear deal. It isn’t a missile deal.

Those may yet come – perhaps in a few months, though a senior US official said there was no agreed time limit for nuclear talks, or perhaps far longer if the history of negotiations with Iran holds. But for now, US President Donald Trump has emerged with an arrangement that could extend a ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, relieving the greatest energy disruption in modern times.

The best news from this at-the-brink negotiation between Washington and Tehran, mediated by a hardline Pakistani general, is that a conflict that easily could have spun further out of control appears to be de-escalating. Assuming both Trump and Iran’s supreme leader, in hiding to avoid assassination attempts, approve the final wording, the choke point through which a quarter of the world’s oil passes should reopen.

That is no small thing at a time when Republicans feared they would be headed into the November midterm elections with high petrol prices and a president pursuing a war most Americans tell pollsters they oppose. For the Iranians, the opening comes just as their battered economy appeared about to crack from the loss of most of their oil revenue.

These are the five main issues to be resolved in the US-Iran deal

But for a president who had declared only 11 weeks ago that “there will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER”, the agreement he announced this weekend was far short of that. And his tone was markedly different.

“The negotiations are proceeding in an orderly and constructive manner, and I have informed my representatives not to rush into a deal in that time is on our side,” he wrote on social media.

Until the supreme leader and other Iranian officials certify the understanding “the Blockade will remain in full force and effect,” he wrote.

He added: “There can be no mistakes! Our relationship with Iran is becoming a much more professional and productive one.”

Yet Trump essentially gave in to the Iranian demand to kick the hardest issues down the road – while apparently succeeding in forcing the Iranians........

© WA Today