The United States and Iran have signed a 14-point memorandum of understanding that halts a nearly four-month war, reopens the Strait of Hormuz, and initiates a 60-day negotiating period aimed at a comprehensive settlement. The document, signed by President Donald Trump and President Masoud Pezeshkian, provides immediate US sanctions relief and authorisations for Iranian oil exports, while committing Tehran to discuss its high-enriched uranium stockpile and to reaffirm it will never seek a nuclear weapon. The ceasefire also extends to Lebanon, and Washington has agreed to gradually lift its naval blockade on Iranian shipping.

Viewed from Washington, the Trump administration insists the framework surpasses the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated under Barack Obama, which Trump abandoned in 2018 as “disastrous” and “one-sided.” US officials point to military pressure that preceded the deal and to Iran’s immediate acceptance of constraints on its nuclear activities as evidence of a stronger position. Tehran’s political establishment, by contrast, frames the memorandum as a strategic victory, arguing that the Islamic Republic withstood a sustained air campaign, preserved its core nuclear infrastructure, retained its ballistic missile programme and regional proxy networks, and secured a path to sanctions relief without capitulating. Israeli officials, however, have voiced alarm: none of the goals they shared with Washington—dismantling Iran’s enrichment capacity, curbing its missile programme, or rolling back its regional influence—are addressed in the current text, leaving them, in the assessment of analysts in Tel Aviv, the most exposed party.

Factually, the memorandum differs from the JCPOA in scope, detail, and legal architecture. The 2015 accord was a 160-page final document with precise numerical limits on enrichment levels, centrifuge numbers, and uranium stockpiles, backed by an intrusive IAEA inspection regime and endorsed by a binding UN Security Council resolution. The new memorandum is a provisional framework of a page and a half; it sets no specific caps, defers the fate of near-weapons-grade uranium to future talks, and contains no provision for restoring international inspections. Sanctions relief, which under the JCPOA was phased and conditional on verified Iranian steps, is here front-loaded. The memorandum also envisages a $300 billion reconstruction and development fund for Iran, to be established with US and Middle Eastern allies, though its terms remain undefined. European observers note that the bilateral format marks a departure from the multilateral P5+1 structure that included the EU, Russia, and China.

Analysts in London and Brussels caution that the comparison is inherently limited because the two agreements were born of opposite circumstances: the JCPOA was designed to prevent a nuclear crisis, while the Trump-era memorandum is an instrument to end an active war. Iran’s nuclear programme has advanced considerably since 2018, its enrichment levels now far exceed the JCPOA’s 3.67 percent cap, and IAEA access has been curtailed. The war itself damaged Iranian nuclear and military sites, though the full extent remains unverified. The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of global oil exports transit, had been effectively closed by Iran since the conflict began; its reopening is an immediate economic stabiliser. The dossier now moves into a 60-day technical negotiation phase, with the possibility of extension, where the most contentious issues—the disposition of enriched uranium, the scope of permanent sanctions relief, and Iran’s future administrative role in the strait—must be resolved. Any final agreement would require a new, binding Security Council resolution.