Trump Treaty With Iran: Nuclear Terms, $300B Fund, Senate Vote

The Trump treaty with Iran is not, in legal form, a treaty at all. It is the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, a 14-point framework signed by President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on June 17, 2026, to end the war that began in late February of that year. The administration structured it as an executive agreement rather than a Senate-ratified treaty, and it has not submitted the document to Congress under the 2015 law that governs Iran nuclear agreements. That choice is now the center of a constitutional fight.¹²

What Kind of Agreement Trump Signed

The document is titled the “Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran.” It runs about 800 words in English and Farsi. Vice President JD Vance and Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf signed it digitally around June 14, 2026, and Trump signed a hard copy at the Palace of Versailles on June 17 during the G7 summit. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who mediated alongside Qatar, said the agreement took “immediate effect.”³⁴

An MOU is a category of sole executive agreement. Under U.S. constitutional law, an Article II treaty requires a two-thirds Senate vote and carries the strongest legal weight. Congressional-executive agreements need a simple majority of both chambers. A sole executive agreement, entered by the president alone, needs neither and can be undone by the next president just as easily.⁵ The Islamabad MOU sits in that last category.

The Core Terms

The agreement commits both sides to an immediate ceasefire and opens a 60-day window to negotiate a final deal covering Iran’s nuclear program and American sanctions. The main provisions:

Both parties declare the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts,” including Lebanon, and commit not to initiate further war against each other.¹
Iran will reopen the Strait of Hormuz and allow commercial vessels through with no charge for 60 days. The U.S. will begin removing its naval blockade immediately and aim to end it fully within 30 days. Iran and Oman will negotiate the strait’s future administration after the 60-day window.⁶
Iran reaffirms it will not procure or develop nuclear weapons. Both sides agree to a mechanism for disposing of Iran’s enriched uranium, with the minimum being on-site down-blending under International Atomic Energy Agency supervision.⁶
Formal sanctions remain in place until a final deal, but the U.S. will immediately issue waivers for Iranian oil and petroleum exports, including related banking and insurance. The MOU commits the U.S. to terminating “all types of sanctions” — including those tied to terrorism, human rights, and ballistic missiles — as part of the final agreement.¹⁷
Frozen Iranian funds become available on final-deal implementation. Within the 60-day window alone, Iran may gain access to roughly $20 billion — about $12 billion unfrozen and $8 billion in oil and petrochemical revenue.⁷
The U.S. will work with regional partners to develop up to $300 billion in reconstruction funding for Iran. Trump has said the U.S. will not directly contribute.¹
The parties have 60 days, extendable by mutual consent, to negotiate a final deal to be endorsed by a binding UN Security Council resolution.⁶

Vance has described the 60-day period as “performance-based,” saying Iran will not receive significant financial benefits or sanctions relief unless it acts as a “good actor.” The U.S. Navy remains deployed to monitor compliance, and Vance said the U.S. retains the ability to reimpose all sanctions if Iran fails to meet expectations.⁸

The Nuclear Provisions

Iran holds approximately 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent U-235, far beyond civilian power needs and on the path toward weapons-grade material.⁹ The MOU’s minimum requirement is that the stockpile be down-blended on-site under IAEA supervision, a process experts describe as irreversible.¹⁰

U.S. officials have said Iran agreed to permanently restrict enrichment to 3.67 percent, the level used for nuclear power, and that negotiators are seeking a suspension of enrichment lasting as long as 15 years.¹¹ Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has said Iran will invite the IAEA to inspect sites and begin accounting for stockpiles.⁹

The MOU itself is described by analysts as “vague” on specific nuclear commitments, and major questions remain open. The U.S. reportedly seeks a 20-year suspension of enrichment while Iran has suggested five years, and verification protocols have not been settled. Formal negotiations began on June 21, 2026, in Lucerne, Switzerland, with Pakistan and Qatar establishing working groups including a dedicated nuclear track.⁹

The $300 Billion Reconstruction Fund

No country has confirmed a financial commitment to the reconstruction fund. Trump and Vance have said American taxpayers will not pay for it, with Vance suggesting it could be funded by “regional Arab countries and by those outside the region interested in investing in Iran.”¹² Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said on June 17 that he had “no details” on the fund and that trust in Iran must be rebuilt before financial investments could be considered. Analysts have said Gulf nations view the fund as “rewarding aggression” and fear an influx of resources would free Iran’s domestic spending for militia support and weapons programs.¹³

The Strait of Hormuz Question

A live dispute has already emerged over what happens after the 60-day free-passage window. Iran has established the “Persian Gulf Strait Authority” and is pushing to impose fees on transiting vessels. The International Maritime Organization has stated that “there is no legal basis for any country to introduce payments or impose tolls, fees, or any discriminatory conditions on international straits.” More than 300 shipping companies have applied for permits from the authority, while the U.S. Treasury has sanctioned the body and prohibited American citizens from receiving Iranian “safe passage” services.¹⁴

Does the Senate Get a Vote

The central legal question is whether the MOU is the kind of agreement that constitutionally requires Senate approval. The administration says no. Its critics say yes, and they point to a specific statute.

The 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, known as INARA, requires the president to submit any agreement “related to the nuclear program of Iran” to Congress for a 30-day review period, during which the president is prohibited from waiving sanctions. The Trump administration has not submitted the MOU to Congress. Reports indicate the administration plans to argue that the document is not a nuclear agreement subject to INARA but rather a framework for reaching one, or a standalone agreement about oil transit through the Strait of Hormuz.²

Legal scholars have contested that framing. Harvard Law professor Jack Goldsmith has said he does not believe the president has authority under domestic law to issue the oil waivers included in the MOU without first completing the INARA review process. Goldsmith and others have also acknowledged it is “doubtful that any institution will make the president comply with INARA in any event.”²

Even if Congress passed a resolution of disapproval, overriding a presidential veto would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers. Critics say that threshold effectively inverts the Constitution’s treaty requirements by making it nearly impossible for Congress to stop an executive agreement.¹⁵

Senator Richard Blumenthal argued the MOU has the characteristics of a treaty and must be subject to Senate approval. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said there was “probably some expectation” the Senate would eventually vote, though he said the administration had not provided enough detail.¹⁶¹⁵ As of late June 2026, no resolution of disapproval had been introduced, and Congress had not formally invoked INARA.¹⁷

The Senate Debate

The MOU has drawn opposition across party lines. Senator Bill Cassidy called it “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”³ Senator Ted Cruz warned that if the U.S. gives billions to Iran, “that money will be used to murder Americans.”¹⁶ Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker called a proposed ceasefire a “disaster” that would render the sacrifices of the war meaningless.¹⁸ Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the deal a “disaster,” saying Iran is more militant now than before the conflict began.

Support has been thinner. Senator Lindsey Graham offered a tepid endorsement after speaking with Witkoff, calling the MOU “beneficial to the United States” for potentially reopening the strait and ending hostilities.¹⁶ Senator Rand Paul urged critics to give the president “space to find an America First solution,” saying wars virtually always end with negotiations.¹⁸ Thune said the deal could be “good for Americans” because of economic relief from lower energy prices, though he said long-term issues remain “unresolved.”

Outside Congress, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the deal mirrors the Obama-era JCPOA and is “not remotely America First.” Former National Security Adviser John Bolton said “the ayatollahs will have won a significant victory.”¹⁸ Public opinion cut the other way: roughly 60 percent of Americans opposed the war, and 91 percent believed it was responsible for higher fuel costs.¹⁹

Why the Legal Form Matters

The classification question is not academic. Because the MOU is a sole executive agreement, its durability depends on political will rather than statutory backing. Chatham House analysts have described it as “impossibly vague” and noted that its enforceability depends on a final deal that does not yet exist and a UN Security Council resolution that has not been passed.²⁰

There is also a gap between what the MOU promises and what the president can deliver alone. The sanctions-relief language appears broader than the JCPOA’s, calling for the termination of “all types of sanctions” rather than only nuclear-related ones. Numerous U.S. laws impose their own conditions before sanctions can be permanently lifted, including certifications related to human rights, terrorism, and weapons development.³ Those statutory barriers mean permanent implementation would likely require acts of Congress, the same body the administration has so far excluded from the process.

Trump’s first-term withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018 offers a preview of that risk running in reverse. The U.S. reimposed sanctions that reduced Iranian oil exports from over 2.1 million barrels per day to as low as 100,000 by 2020, and Iran responded by resuming prohibited nuclear activities, including enrichment to higher concentrations and the development of advanced centrifuges. That withdrawal is widely seen as the catalyst for the escalation cycle that ultimately led to the 2026 war.²¹ An agreement built on executive action alone can be reversed by executive action alone, and the Islamabad MOU has been built the same way.

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