Trump's 'Final Determination' on Iran: Inside the Nuclear Deal That Could End — or Restart — a War

On the morning of May 29, 2026, President Donald Trump announced he was meeting in the White House Situation Room "to make a final determination" on whether to approve a deal with Iran [1]. The proposed agreement — a 60-day memorandum of understanding — would extend a fragile ceasefire, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and launch what would be the most consequential nuclear negotiations since the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [2].

The stakes are hard to overstate. Three months of armed conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran have produced what the International Energy Agency has called "the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market" [3]. Iran's 440.9 kilograms of 60%-enriched uranium — enough for an estimated nine nuclear weapons if further enriched — remain unaccounted for after a verification blackout that began when Tehran expelled IAEA inspectors on February 28 [4]. And Trump's own Republican allies in the Senate are openly warning that the emerging terms amount to a "nightmare" [5].

What Trump Is Demanding

Trump laid out his conditions publicly on May 29, framing them as non-negotiable. Iran "must agree" to never possess a nuclear weapon. The Strait of Hormuz must be "immediately open" to unrestricted shipping. And enriched material buried at nuclear sites damaged by U.S.-Israeli strikes must be "unearthed" by the United States "in close coordination and conjunction with the Islamic Republic of Iran, plus the International Atomic Energy Agency, and DESTROYED" [1].

Behind these public statements, the U.S. negotiating position has been more specific. According to reporting from Axios, the 15-point framework includes dismantlement of Iran's uranium enrichment program, zero enrichment in the future, suspension of ballistic missile activities, and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz [6]. CNN reported that the memorandum would start a 60-day negotiation window addressing the disposal of Iran's highly enriched uranium and its enrichment capabilities, with sanctions relief discussions to follow only if Iran complies [7].

How This Compares to the 2015 JCPOA

The gap between Trump's demands and the original JCPOA framework is vast. Under the 2015 deal, Iran was permitted to enrich uranium up to 3.67% — sufficient for civilian nuclear power but far below weapons-grade — and to operate 5,060 IR-1 centrifuges at Natanz for ten years [8]. Iran's low-enriched uranium stockpile was capped at 300 kilograms. No enrichment was allowed at the underground Fordow facility. Crucially, the JCPOA's sunset provisions would have removed all enrichment limits after 15 years [9].

Trump's current position goes further than the JCPOA in every dimension: zero enrichment rather than capped enrichment, full dismantlement rather than monitored reduction, and permanent restrictions rather than sunset clauses. The JCPOA did not address ballistic missiles or regional proxy forces; Trump's framework attempts to include both [6].

The Biden-era draft framework that collapsed in 2022 fell somewhere between: it would have restored the JCPOA's enrichment caps and reinstated IAEA monitoring, but foundered over Iran's demand for guarantees against future U.S. withdrawal and the question of sanctions on the IRGC [10].

How Close Is Iran to a Bomb?

The answer depends on which data you trust — and how much has changed since the February strikes.

Source: Arms Control Association / ISIS

Data as of May 29, 2026CSV

Before the war, Iran's breakout time — the period needed to produce enough weapons-grade (90%-enriched) uranium for a single device — had collapsed to roughly two weeks, according to multiple expert assessments [11]. The IAEA's September 2025 verification report documented 440.9 kg of uranium enriched up to 60% U-235, making Iran the only NPT non-nuclear-weapon state to have produced and accumulated uranium at that level [4]. The separative work required to further enrich that stockpile to 90% is only 564 SWU — approximately 1% of the 55,330 SWU already committed, meaning 99% of the enrichment work was already done [4].

The February 28 strikes changed the calculus, but by how much remains disputed. A preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency assessment found that Iran had moved much of its enriched uranium stockpile before the strikes and that the attacks set back weapons capability by "only a matter of months" [12]. CIA Director subsequently revised that assessment upward, saying new intelligence indicated "severe damage" to nuclear facilities that would take years to rebuild [12]. Post-strike breakout is now estimated at roughly 12 weeks under the most likely scenario, though this carries only medium confidence given the IAEA verification blackout [11].

That blackout is itself a critical variable. Iran terminated all IAEA access on February 28, 2026 — the most significant verification gap in the agency's history with Iran [11]. The IAEA cannot verify strike damage, stockpile status, or whether covert enrichment is occurring at undeclared sites.

Source: IAEA / Arms Control Association

Data as of May 29, 2026CSV

The Oil Shock and Who Stands to Gain or Lose

The economic dimension of Trump's decision cannot be separated from the war's extraordinary disruption to global energy markets.

Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz on March 4, 2026, choking off approximately 20% of global oil supply and significant LNG volumes [3]. Brent crude surged from roughly $76 per barrel in January to above $120 at peak disruption in mid-March [13]. Even after the April 8 ceasefire, ship traffic through the strait remained far below pre-war levels [14].

Source: EIA / Reuters

Data as of May 29, 2026CSV

The IEA reported cumulative supply losses exceeding 1 billion barrels, with more than 14 million barrels per day of oil shut in — an unprecedented shock that echoed the 1970s energy crisis through supply shortages, currency volatility, and heightened recession risk [3]. Gulf Cooperation Council states, which rely on the strait for over 80% of food imports, experienced a concurrent "grocery supply emergency," with consumer food prices spiking 40–120% by mid-March [3].

If a deal reopens the strait and eventually leads to sanctions relief, several shifts follow. Iran's pre-war crude production of 3.2–3.3 million barrels per day could gradually return to global markets [15]. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which have partially compensated for lost supply through alternative export routes, would face renewed price competition. European nations currently paying premium prices for diverted LNG cargoes would see relief. China, Iran's largest remaining oil customer, stands to benefit from a normalization that Trump had previously vowed to prevent — his February 2025 directive sought to "drive Iran's export of oil to zero, including exports of Iranian crude to the People's Republic of China" [15].

The Split Inside Iran's Power Structure

The internal Iranian politics surrounding these negotiations are shaped by a leadership transition born of the war itself.

The February 28 U.S.-Israeli strikes killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, along with members of the Assembly of Experts meeting in Qom [16]. His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has assumed the supreme leader position under an IRGC security cordon [16]. President Masoud Pezeshkian, elected in 2025 on a platform of moderation and reform, has found himself increasingly marginalized — the IRGC has blocked his presidential appointments and effectively assumed control over key state functions [17].

The IRGC's aerospace commander publicly stated that "negotiating with the enemy is pure loss," signaling resistance from hardline military factions to any deal [18]. This pattern has historical precedent: the IRGC undermined implementation of the original JCPOA through continued ballistic missile tests and regional operations that gave U.S. hawks ammunition to argue Iran was violating the "spirit" of the deal, even when it remained in technical compliance.

The Arab Center Washington identified five competing political groupings jockeying for influence: hardline absolutists seeking total power, pragmatic conservatives, mainstream reformists, militant opposition outside the regime, and the supreme leader's office as a center of gravity [18]. With Mojtaba Khamenei still consolidating authority, the question is whether he has either the inclination or the political capital to override the IRGC and accept what would amount to nuclear capitulation.

Al Jazeera reported "deep suspicion" of the United States across Iran's political spectrum, noting that even moderate factions view American commitments as unreliable given the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 [19].

The Case For and Against Maximalist Demands

The Steelman for Trump's Approach

Proponents argue that the combination of military strikes and economic pressure has created a window that did not exist during the JCPOA negotiations. Iran's nuclear infrastructure is damaged, its supreme leader is dead, its economy is under severe strain from the Hormuz closure, and the IRGC is stretched thin. From this perspective, demanding zero enrichment is rational precisely because the alternative — a "cap and monitor" framework like the JCPOA — failed to prevent Iran from reaching near-weapons capability once it chose to exceed those caps. A Foreign Affairs analysis noted that Trump's negotiating position, while extreme, reflects a genuine strategic logic: if the goal is to permanently prevent an Iranian bomb, allowing any enrichment capacity means accepting the risk of future breakout [10].

The Historical Counterargument

The record of coercive diplomacy demanding full dismantlement from near-nuclear states is not encouraging. Libya's Muammar Gaddafi abandoned his nuclear program in 2003 under diplomatic pressure, only to be overthrown by a NATO-backed intervention in 2011 [20]. North Korea has consistently cited Libya's fate as "dispositive proof that only a fool would negotiate away missile and nuclear capabilities" [20]. Pakistan, which crossed the nuclear threshold in 1998 under intense U.S. pressure not to do so, demonstrates that determined states can withstand coercion.

The Brookings Institution warned that invoking the "Libya model" in negotiations is actively counterproductive, because the target state interprets it not as a template for peaceful disarmament but as evidence that disarmament leads to regime change [21]. Iran's leadership — which has now directly experienced U.S. military strikes on its territory and leadership — is likely to draw exactly this conclusion.

RAND Corporation analysts have argued that the key distinction is between states that had rudimentary programs (Libya) and those with advanced, dispersed infrastructure (North Korea, Pakistan, and now Iran) — for the latter category, full dismantlement has never been achieved through external pressure alone [20].

Military Options if Talks Collapse

The February 28 strikes demonstrated both the reach and limits of military force against Iran's nuclear program.

U.S. and Israeli forces launched nearly 900 strikes in 12 hours, targeting missiles, air defenses, nuclear facilities at Natanz, a uranium processing facility in Yazd, and senior political figures [12] [22]. Israel described the Yazd facility as "unique" in Iran's nuclear infrastructure [22]. The FDD documented strikes on ballistic missile production infrastructure, mobile launchers, and enrichment-related sites [23].

But the assessment of damage underscores the limits. Iran's nuclear material is likely buried deep in underground facilities — direct hits with bunker-busting munitions may have entombed material rather than destroyed it [24]. Analysis from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists found that Iran likely transferred highly enriched uranium to Isfahan before the strikes [25]. The CSIS assessed that a sustained aerial campaign could further degrade underground facilities, but acknowledged that without ground operations, complete destruction of buried stockpiles is uncertain [24].

If talks collapse, Iranian retaliation options remain substantial despite the degradation of its military. Before the ceasefire, Iran demonstrated its ability to disrupt Gulf infrastructure and shipping through the Hormuz closure. U.S. forces in the region remain exposed — the UK House of Commons Library documented ongoing risks to bases in Iraq, Bahrain, and Qatar [26]. The prospect of renewed hostilities, with oil prices likely surging past the March highs, serves as a powerful mutual deterrent.

Domestic Political Pressures on Trump

Republican support for the emerging deal is far from guaranteed.

Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, have criticized the reported terms [5]. Senator Roger Wicker, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned that "the rumored 60-day ceasefire — with the belief that Iran will ever engage in good faith — would be a disaster" [5]. The Times of Israel reported senior GOP senators calling the deal a "nightmare for Israel" [5].

A war powers resolution advancing through the Senate with a 50–47 vote showed a small but growing number of Republicans willing to challenge the president on the war itself — creating cross-cutting pressures where Trump faces opposition both from hawks who want tougher terms and from a faction that questions the war's authorization [5].

On the other side, the economic pressure to end the conflict is intense. The Hormuz closure has produced fuel shortages and price spikes that directly affect U.S. consumers. Energy companies with Gulf operations have lobbied for stabilization. Defense contractors benefit from continued military operations, but the broader business community and agricultural exporters — facing disrupted trade routes and rising input costs — have pushed for resolution [3].

The Legal Void: Enforcement Without a Framework

Even if Trump approves the deal, its legal foundation is precarious.

The 2015 JCPOA was not a treaty — the State Department classified it as a non-binding political commitment, not an executive agreement or treaty under U.S. law [27]. Trump's proposed 60-day memorandum of understanding occupies similarly ambiguous legal territory. Without Senate ratification, any agreement relies entirely on executive authority and can be reversed by a future president — exactly as Trump himself demonstrated when he withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018.

The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 (INARA), passed with overwhelming bipartisan support (98–1 in the Senate, 400–25 in the House), requires the administration to submit any agreement related to Iran's nuclear program to Congress within five days [27]. Congress then has a statutory review period during which it can block implementation. INARA does not prevent the president from making a deal, but it regulates the president's power to implement sanctions relief — the key leverage Iran is seeking [28].

In 2022, 33 Republican senators led by Ted Cruz committed in writing to "blocking implementation of any Iran deal not submitted to Congress for approval" [29]. Whether that coalition holds in the current political environment — with war fatigue competing against hawkish instincts — is an open question.

The verification challenge is equally daunting. The United States is no longer part of the JCPOA's multilateral framework. The P5+1 structure that provided collective enforcement has fractured, with Russia and China unlikely to reimpose sanctions they have been circumventing. Any new verification regime would need to be built from scratch, beginning with the restoration of IAEA access that Iran severed three months ago [11].

What Comes Next

The 60-day memorandum, if Trump approves it, is a framework for negotiation, not an outcome. The hardest questions — whether Iran will surrender its enriched uranium or merely down-blend it, whether "zero enrichment" means permanent dismantlement or a temporary freeze, whether sanctions relief will be front-loaded or contingent on full compliance — remain unanswered [2].

What is clear is that both sides face constraints that make walking away costly. For the United States, continued conflict means sustained oil market disruption, military exposure in the Gulf, and a growing congressional challenge to war authorization. For Iran, the alternative to negotiation is continued strikes, economic isolation, and a leadership transition conducted under siege conditions.

Trump's "final determination" will not resolve these tensions. It will determine whether they are addressed at a negotiating table or on a battlefield — again.