U.S. Vice President JD Vance announced on Thursday that approximately 12.5 million barrels of crude oil had sailed through the Strait of Hormuz overnight, just hours after President Donald Trump signed a deal with Iran to end the conflict that had disrupted global energy supplies. However, fresh Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon early Thursday cast doubt on the extent to which Trump will compel his wartime allies to halt an offensive he has now pledged to end.
Trump Signs Memorandum of Understanding with Iran
On Wednesday, Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a “memorandum of understanding” to end the war, bringing it into effect two days earlier than anticipated. The agreement calls for the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the lifting of the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports. Vance, who will represent the United States at a formal ceremony in Switzerland on Friday to confirm the interim accord, stated that the United States expects Tehran to refrain from possessing missiles that could “broadly threaten the entire world” as part of the deal.
He noted that Thursday marked the start of a 60-day negotiation period to finalize a settlement to the war, which Trump launched in February alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Shippers indicated that it would still take time for transit across the strait to return to pre-war levels, as safe access and mine clearance remain necessary.
Markets reacted swiftly to the news. Benchmark Brent crude futures fell another 2% to below $78 a barrel, the lowest since hostilities began on February 28.
Memorandum Explicitly Calls for End of War in Lebanon
Israel, which launched an invasion of Lebanon in March and has since seized a large area in the south to pursue Hezbollah militants who opened fire across the border in support of Iran, was excluded from the negotiations. Iran has consistently stated that any peace deal must also address Lebanon. In a major concession to Tehran, the memorandum signed by Trump explicitly calls for the “permanent termination” of the war in Lebanon and the preservation of its “territorial integrity and sovereignty.”
With Lebanon being one of the most delicate issues in the peace effort, Trump has recently become openly critical of Israel’s operations there, accusing it of unnecessarily destroying entire buildings to target Hezbollah fighters. Israel has stated it has no intention of withdrawing from Lebanon, regardless of Trump’s negotiations. It released a new map on Thursday showing an expanded southern area occupied by its troops, which it describes as a buffer zone.
Vance told reporters that one goal of the deal with Iran was to enable Lebanese authorities to police the south of the country. “What we want to see is the Lebanese government, the elected representatives of the people of Lebanon, who are able to police southern Lebanon, so that Hezbollah has not taken over the country, the Israelis are not threatened, and then consequently the Israelis are not attacking southern Lebanon or Beirut either,” he said.
Two Israeli officials, including a senior official close to Netanyahu, told Reuters that Israel is holding negotiations with the United States to keep Israeli troops in Lebanon. The senior official described the talks as “stubborn” and said Israel would not back down. The other official stated that the outcome would depend on whether Trump “decides to force the issue” by threatening repercussions on Israel.
While fighting in Lebanon had subsided at the start of the week when Trump first announced the deal, it has escalated again in recent days and continued on Thursday morning after Trump’s signature. Lebanese state news agency NNA reported that three people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the southern towns of Kfartebnit and Zebdine on Thursday. Reuters reporters heard an Israeli drone flying low over Beirut and its southern suburbs.
Displaced Lebanese Express Uncertainty
“Iran and the Americans are done. Fine. In Lebanon it’s not over yet,” said Mohammed Doghman, a man displaced from the southern city of Nabatieh to Beirut, who was sitting outside his tent on Thursday, squinting at his phone to read the news. “They should give us a final answer: has the war ended for good, or will we return to it again?”
In Qlailieh, near the port of Tyre in southern Lebanon, a few displaced residents had ventured back to survey the ruins of their homes, flattened into piles of concrete rubble that many compared to Gaza. Netanyahu has long boasted of a particularly close relationship with Trump, which ultimately led to the joint decision to wage war on Iran this year. But Trump’s apparent shift over Lebanon has abruptly created one of the biggest rifts in U.S.-Israeli relations in decades.
“Soon, Israel may be forced to choose: Either keep up the military pressure and lose Trump’s diplomatic support, or stay on his good side — but only by ending, or scaling back, the conflict that many see as the country’s most urgent fight,” the Times of Israel wrote on Thursday.
When Trump launched the war nearly four months ago, he stated his aims were to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, end its ability to strike its neighbors, prevent it from supporting allied militants in the region, and enable Iranians to topple their hardline leaders. Although he initially demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” Trump ultimately signed the agreement with none of those objectives met.
U.S. officials say the upcoming negotiations could still yield a strong agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, but his critics, including some hawks within his own party, argue that Iran is now in a stronger position than before the war, having withstood a superpower attack, exerted control over the strait, and gained valuable waivers to financial sanctions.
