Is a U.S.-Iran Deal Within Reach? Six Key Issues That Could Shape a Ceasefire
The United States and Iran are reportedly close to a long-awaited agreement, but it remains to be seen whether it resolves their major differences—including nuclear and missile programs, the Strait of Hormuz, and Israel’s war with Iranian proxies.
President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States and Iran were nearing an agreement to settle a three-and-a-half month-long conflict that has closed the Strait of Hormuz, sent oil shocks through the world, and affected global growth projections. Neither country has shared the terms that could be included in a potential agreement, and the president said he was not “100 percent” certain they had reached a deal—but there were several indications of progress.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday that the two sides have “never been closer” on terms. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who has acted as a mediator between Tehran and Washington, claimed in a social media post the same afternoon that “a final, agreed upon text of the peace deal has been reached.” Neither the United States nor Iran have officially confirmed Sharif’s claim, though Trump has accused Iran of leaking aspects of the deal.
While the United States and Iran are likely to frame any agreement as beneficial to their side, an initial pact will not be the end of the negotiations. The expectation is that this deal—a memorandum of understanding (MOU)—would extend the ceasefire for at least sixty days and open the Strait of Hormuz, a choke point for nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supply. Meanwhile, the two sides would continue to negotiate several important issues, including the future of Iran’s nuclear program.
“We have been here before only to discover the parties cannot bridge the remaining gaps,” said Steven Cook, a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Even if they do and an MOU is announced, negotiations on the outstanding issues, especially on Iran’s nuclear program, will be long and difficult.”
While the specific terms of the deal remain contested, below are six topline items that have been central to the U.S.-Iran talks since the start of the war.
Strait of Hormuz
Many eyes are on whether or not Iran will lift its hold on the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian news agency Mehr reported that the reopening would occur within thirty days. Tehran would clear the mines and not be allowed to collect tolls, and Washington would remove its naval blockade. The official Iranian state outlet, IRNA, said that the draft terms do not include Iran relinquishing its control over the strait. “Iran makes no commitment in this text to cede the management of the strait or the restoration of conditions that existed prior to the American and Israeli military aggression,” IRNA said.
The United States and Iran issued conflicting statements about the waterway, with Iran maintaining that Hormuz was closed to all traffic yesterday and the United States claiming on Wednesday that they had been moving vessels through nonetheless.
“How the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is managed will be something to watch closely. While Iran may agree to not charge ‘tolls,’ service fees and other mechanisms have been floated,” said Elisa Ewers, a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Getting as close as possible to status quo ante will be important for global commerce, for allies to avoid setting dangerous precedents for other waterways, and for regional partners, who will need to live with the arrangements.”
The Iranian blockade, which has been mostly in effect since the war’s outbreak in late February, has severely limited global energy supplies, sending oil prices into disarray and diminishing some countries’ power generation capacity. The price of oil dropped to its lowest point in weeks on Friday after Trump’s announcement that a deal was close.
Iran’s nuclear program
The Iranian nuclear program has been one of the most contentious issues. Its facilities were the target of major U.S.-Israeli strikes in 2025 and the Trump administration cited it as an initial reason for pursuing the current war. Iran insists that its nuclear program is peaceful, despite its history of noncompliance with the UN nuclear watchdog and its enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade.
Since Trump formally withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, on-again, off-again negotiations between Washington and Tehran on a new nuclear agreement have been unsuccessful. The United States wants to ensure that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon, which includes Iran giving up its enriched uranium and putting a moratorium on its program. The Islamic Republic has resisted these demands.
Nevertheless, the draft MOU includes pledges from both countries to further negotiate the enrichment program’s suspension and stockpile removal. Iran would, however, commit to never pursuing a nuclear weapon—a commitment it made and crossed before. Trump claimed on Thursday that Iran has already committed to these terms.
The deal on the table, according to multiple news sources, is that Iran would agree to a fifteen- or twenty-year halt on enrichment, and the dismantling of its nuclear sites, but this is deferred to the sixty-day follow-on negotiations rather than up front. “The details matter here,” Ewers said, in terms of what the inspection and verification regime will be, what dismantlement entails in the context of facilities that were targeted in June 2025’s bombings, and several other provisions.
The IRNA said that Iran would negotiate on the nuclear issue “solely within the framework of the Islamic Republic’s fundamental principles,” and wouldn’t be willing to give up enrichment—which will make a verification system critical.
“By building many small workshops containing advanced centrifuges, Tehran can challenge the prying foreigners to find them all,” Ray Takeyh, a CFR senior fellow for Middle East studies, wrote last month. “If any escape detection, the regime has a safer path to bomb production.”
Iranian proxies
The web of militant groups across the Middle East that are supported by Iran have contributed to the escalation of several conflicts in recent years, including the Israel-Hamas war that broke out after the October 7, 2023, attacks and the Iran war. The Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon have been the primary nonstate actors involved: the Houthis launched missiles at Israel on March 28, and Israel and Hezbollah were locked in conflict for several weeks in connection to Israel’s initial strikes on Iran in February.
The draft U.S.-Iran deal would stipulate that hostilities from all sides would cease, and this would include on the Israel-Hezbollah front. Iran would also agree to not fund terrorist groups—a reference to Iran’s proxies—a U.S. official told the BBC. Iran has not yet made any statements about whether they would agree to this. In the past, it has both opposed negotiation about its proxy network and supported stopping Israeli hostilities in Lebanon—which Cook said is part of Iran’s “effort to save Hezbollah and keep Lebanon from normalizing ties with Israel.”
Israel’s military, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), announced an evacuation notice for civilians in southern Lebanon on Friday, citing “Hezbollah’s violation of the ceasefire agreement.” Israel is not part of the draft MOU between the United States and Iran, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that he and Trump had spoken on the matter last night and were in “complete agreement.”
Military limits
The limits that the United States would like to place on Iran’s missile program are, perhaps, among the most difficult sticking points to negotiate. Iran has cast changes to its missile program as an intractable red line. Araghchi wrote a post on his Telegram channel after talks in February that said his country’s program was “never negotiable,” calling it a “defense issue.”
Iran’s counter-proposal, as reported by Iranian state media, focuses exclusively on nuclear issues, sanctions relief, and economic compensation—making no mention of its ballistic missile program. But Israel has continued to push hard from the outside to force the issue, and the United States has maintained that any deal should address Iran’s missile capabilities to ensure regional security.
Some analysts and experts believe that this U.S. and Israeli demand has quietly diminished as negotiations have proceeded, even as U.S. intelligence sources estimate that Iran retains 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile and roughly 70 percent of its mobile missile launchers. There are further concerns that Iran is using the current ceasefire to steadily rebuild its military base faster than expected.
Iran has also indicated that it would like to limit U.S. power in the region as part of a deal by requiring U.S. forces to withdraw from Iran’s periphery. Trump has said he “can’t imagine” accepting that demand.
Compensation and sanctions
Iran entered the war negotiations with financial grievances due to U.S. and Israeli attacks in recent months. The Islamic Republic has called for reparations, and Iranian officials have claimed $270 billion in direct and indirect war damage since February 28. While the United States has rejected the reparations framing, there is an expectation that an agreement could include financial incentives for Iran, possibly in the form of unfrozen assets and sanctions relief.
The sequencing of a potential release of funds and sanctions relief could be at issue. Iran has reportedly asserted that it should be able to gain access to about $24 billion that the United States and its allies have frozen soon after a deal is signed, while officials in Washington have typically argued that assets should remain frozen until Tehran meets certain standards and there is a final, verifiably implemented agreement. In May, top Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf reportedly called for half that fund to be released at the signing of the MOU, with the other half released within sixty days.
Neither side has shown flexibility on the timeline for sanctions relief and releasing assets. Vice President JD Vance said in a social media post on Friday “that if the Islamic Republic of Iran meets its obligations, then economic benefits will flow to them and to the entire region. This deal has the potential to remake the region and lead to lasting peace.” Iran’s economic needs are great, especially if it would like to address economic concerns that led to widespread protests earlier this year and stabilize a wartime economy running at nearly 70 percent of annual inflation.
Israel’s war in Lebanon
The conflict in Lebanon has functioned as both a pressure point for Iran and a persistent complication for U.S. diplomacy with the Islamic Republic. Iran has explicitly linked Israel’s war on its neighbor to any potential ceasefire between Tehran and Washington. The Islamic Republic even briefly suspended negotiations earlier this month in response to Israeli operations in Lebanon. The Lebanese Health Ministry reported more than 3,400 killed in Lebanon since fighting escalated in early March; the toll continues to rise, and includes both civilians and combatants.
Israel has framed its Lebanon campaign as a separate and ongoing objective—one it has pursued with or without U.S. support. Netanyahu said in March that Israel was focused on “dismantling Hezbollah” as part of its wider campaign against Iran, saying the IDF had “fundamentally changed” the situation and that any Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon would be contingent on Hezbollah’s disarmament.
“Including Lebanon in this understanding between Iran and the United States, as Iran has demanded, is not ideal even if it was inevitable,” CFR’s Ewers said. “For the Israeli government, halting its fight against Hezbollah is a tall order, especially with upcoming elections and while Washington negotiates with Tehran on the thorny issues. For the Lebanese government, which is fractured itself, it underscores that [Lebanon] could not deliver fully on disarmament commitments while Hezbollah continues to shoot at Israel.”
A U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon took effect on April 16. It has been extended twice since, but both sides have repeatedly accused each other of violations. Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon and Beirut have continued, prompting a heated confrontation between Trump and Netanyahu that underscored how much the Lebanon front is complicating the broader Iran deal.
“Hopefully, the negotiation track between Israel and Lebanon continues apace, and Hezbollah abides by whatever restraints Tehran places on it in the context of the next sixty-plus days of negotiations,” Ewers added. “Still, it will take real time and political commitment—including from Washington—to continue to keep the Lebanon-Israel process progressing.”