After the signing of the joint framework agreement, the first talks between the US and Iran were to begin today. Time is of the essence - a final peace agreement must be agreed within 60 days. However, the start of the talks has been postponed for now, the government of Switzerland, which was supposed to host the talks, announced.
The US says the reason is that J.D. Vance, who will lead the negotiations, cannot travel to Switzerland right now. At the same time, the Israeli military operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon continues. According to diplomatic sources, Iran is demanding guarantees that military action in Lebanon will stop in order to begin negotiations with the United States.
Criticism from both the opposition and those close to Trump
"Iran will receive tens of billions of dollars and will give nothing in return," Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told CNN.
Criticism from Donald Trump's opposition poured in after the terms of the agreement signed by the United States and Iran to end the war were announced.
However, there is no shortage of negative assessments from the American president's favorite media outlet - "Fox News". One of the TV channel's hosts, Trey Gowdy, commented on the outcome of the negotiations as follows: "They are in a better position now than they were when the war started". Republican Senator Bill Cassidy also described the deal as "terrible".
Removal of sanctions, uncertainties over the nuclear program
The framework agreement includes the provision of $300 billion as a reconstruction fund for Iran, ARD recalls. The US is also committed to lifting sanctions imposed on Iranian oil and energy. Washington is even ready to discuss the lifting of all sanctions against Iran. Former national security adviser in various White House administrations Brett McGurk says that this could earn Iran between $60 and $80 billion a year. And that's before Iran even makes commitments on its nuclear program.
The US president himself has repeatedly criticized the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, negotiated by then-President Barack Obama. Trump withdrew the US from it during his first term, after calling it "one of the worst deals" ever made. His argument was that it only poured money into Iran's coffers, ARD recalls. That seems to have been forgotten. Trump now claims that he must end the war to avoid economic catastrophe.
Brett McGurk and other critics of the deal believe that by lifting the sanctions, the US will give up its main advantage in the upcoming negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program. The framework agreement is very vague. It only notes that Iran cannot acquire or develop nuclear weapons. However, Iran has claimed for years that it has no such intentions.
What has Trump achieved at all?
As for the Strait of Hormuz, all that is known so far is that it will be open and Iran will not collect fees for passage through it for 60 days. What will happen after that deadline, however, is unclear - on paper it seems to leave a loophole for Iran to profit from the passage.
The fact that the Strait of Hormuz is open is not a big victory - that was the situation before the war even started. Whether the ceasefire will help Trump and the Republicans achieve good results in the midterm elections in November is questionable.
According to Trump, all critics of the deal are envious, fraudsters or just stupid, as he wrote on his Truth Social profile. But one of the most important questions of the critics remains unanswered - what exactly did Trump achieve with this war? Perhaps the answers will come during the negotiations, which are not clear when they will begin.
Author: Nina Barth