The White House said the U.S. and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding on Sunday, then said there would be another signing on Friday with a ceremony. Donald Trump said the agreement would let him fully authorize the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, but officials spent Monday sending mixed messages about when the text would be released and when the deal would actually take effect.
That matters because the Strait of Hormuz is not an abstract bargaining chip. It is a critical route for commercial shipping, and the timing of its reopening affects vessels moving through a choke point that has already been tied up in missile strikes and naval blockades. The memo was being handled as a road map to a broader deal, yet the public explanation around it shifted by the hour.
Trump said on Sunday that the reopening would be part of what he called a complete deal, then later said the strait would open once the agreement was signed on Friday. On Monday, some administration officials said the text would be released within 24 to 48 hours. Others said it would not come out until Friday. That same day, Trump said while in France for the Group of Seven summit that he might read the text of the MOU aloud during a news conference, and officials ended up reading it on a call with reporters during his appearance.
Even the implementation language has not matched the pace of the public messaging. The MOU says commercial vessel traffic will immediately start, and it stipulates that the Strait of Hormuz should have opened immediately. Yet the U.S. took hours to say the strait was open, and the blockade of ships coming from or going to Iranian ports was not lifted until after the second signing, according to U.S. Central Command. In practice, that left the first hours after the agreement looking less like a reopening than a waiting period.
The confusion comes as the conflict itself has not stopped. The U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran in February, and Iran and the U.S. have continued to launch strikes even as leaders say a temporary ceasefire brokered in early April remains in place. Trump has also given different reasons for going to war with Iran, and the memorandum now on the table differs from what he said he wanted out of a deal. Americans are increasingly down on his handling of the war, which helps explain why some Republicans in Congress are not treating the MOU as a clean win.
On Wednesday, Bill Cassidy called it the worst foreign policy blunder in decades. On Tuesday, John Kennedy said no one is confident that Iran is going to do anything. Lindsey Graham said he spoke with Steve Witkoff and argued that signing the MOU would be beneficial to the United States because the Strait of Hormuz would begin to open and hostilities with Iran would stop. Vance said Thursday that the 60-day clock for a long-term agreement had already started, but it is still unclear whether there will be a signing ceremony on Friday or any further talks at all. For now, the deal exists as both a promise and a question: whether the text, the timing and the reopening can line up before the public loses patience with all three.
