06/18/2026
President Trump signs US-Iran agreement at Palace of Versailles to end the war
President Donald Trump has signed the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran to end the war.
Trump signed the document shortly before the dinner hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles on Wednesday night, June 17.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, also signed the agreement on Wednesday from Tehran. The US vice-president, JD Vance, is also expected to sign the deal at a more formal ceremony in Geneva on Friday.
Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said: “The agreement is a record of US failure. People will see it and judge.”
Defending the deal, Trump said no US president had ever been as tough on Iran as him, and “there is nothing as smart as the market – and the market loves it”.
Trump said that “the alternative would be a worldwide depression”, arguing that if he had not struck a deal, “the strait [of Hormuz] would never have been opened. They don’t like floating billion-dollar ships up and down the strait when their rockets are flying overhead and there are mines all over the place.”
The deal would also provide important financial incentives to Iran, including the immediate lifting of a US naval blockade on Iranian ports and the issuance of waivers for Iranian crude oil to be shipped abroad, as well as the potential lifting of all international sanctions against Iran, the unfreezing of billions of dollars in Iranian assets, and plans to develop a $300bn (£224bn) reconstruction fund for Iran funded by regional partners in the Gulf.
In return, Iran would agree to restrain its foreign allies including Hezbollah in Lebanon, and “reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons”.
The agreement would also allow the toll-free passage of ships for 60 days through the strait of Hormuz, but on Wednesday Ghalibaf said Iran would charge ships travelling through the waterway at the end of the period stipulated in the memorandum of understanding.
