WASHINGTON- The White House responded Thursday to growing bipartisan criticism of a negotiated war deal with Iran, arguing that its concessions to the Islamic Republic were contingent on its conduct and were essential to ensuring peace.
The administration's defensive posture came as details of the framework agreement, known as a memorandum of understanding, were finally shared with the public, revealing a series of commitments to Tehran that Republicans had long opposed.
Vice President JD Vance, who helped negotiate the deal, told reporters Thursday that the deal was structured to reward Iran for good behavior. But the text of the agreement suggests otherwise.
The Trump administration agreed to release billions of dollars in Iranian assets that were frozen and restricted by the United States “upon implementation” of the memorandum, before further action is taken or additional negotiations begin. The president will issue sanctions waivers on Iranian oil, allowing Tehran to resume trade in its most valuable export and break decades of policy. And to facilitate that trade, increasing Tehran's revenue, Trump agreed to immediately end the US naval blockade of Iranian ports.
Even more concessions were offered to the Iranians, including the US administration's commitment to establish a fund of “at least $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic,” effectively providing reparations for the war that Trump started.
“All licenses, exemptions and permits necessary for relevant financial transactions will be granted by the United States of America,” the memo reads.
Taken together, the document reads as a striking shift in U.S. policy toward Iran after decades of concern across Washington administrations – including during Trump's two terms – that the Islamic Republic poses the greatest threats to the nation's security as the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism.
Criticism from Republican senators, in particular, has been harsh and swift.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the $300 billion fund “would make Iran's payments under President Obama's 2015 deal look like a pittance by comparison.” And Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accused the Trump administration of giving Iran money it would use to kill Americans.
“History shows that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is an exceptionally bad idea and I think, unfortunately, the president is getting very bad advice on this deal,” Cruz said. “I don't want us to send a cent to the ayatollah. And I hope we don't.”
The Obama-era deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, included structured sanctions relief for Iran in exchange for concrete, verifiable steps by Tehran to dismantle much of its nuclear program, a framework that Republicans widely criticized at the time.
By contrast, Trump's deal commits the United States to seeking economic relief for Iran, without providing clarity on the future of Iran's nuclear program, the same issue Trump cited as justification for launching war.
The memo includes Iran's commitment to never buy or build nuclear weapons, a promise the Islamic Republic has made several times before, including in signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, in a religious edict issued by the late supreme leader and in the Obama-era nuclear deal.
Vice President JD Vance speaks to reporters at the White House on June 18, 2026.
(Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)
Detailed negotiations over Iran's nuclear program – including whether Tehran could continue domestic uranium enrichment, at what level and under what monitoring regime – were left for another day.
For more than a decade, the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Iran sought a threshold nuclear capability, securing the strategic advantages of a nuclear power without incurring the costs of openly pursuing a bomb.
The deal does include a commitment by Iran to do “its best” to return commercial maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital international waterway, to pre-war levels. But the president's critics said he had to make deep and historic concessions just to ensure a status quo ante upended by the war he started. And in the document, Tehran agreed to refrain from imposing a toll on ships transiting the strait for only a 60-day period.
“Unless you were homeschooled by a daytime drinker, no one trusts that Iran is going to do anything,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told reporters this week.
Senator Bill Cassidy, Kennedy's Republican counterpart in Louisiana, called the deal “the worst foreign policy mistake in decades,” which would make President Reagan “roll in his grave.”
“Iran's nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly take advantage of it in the future. Iran will now be able to build entirely new infrastructure under this deal,” Cassidy said.
“Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions and 13 military personnel were still alive,” he added. “Now, 13 Americans have died, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped.”
Despite mounting criticism, Trump signed the memo Wednesday night while attending a dinner with the French president at Versailles, a palace famous for hosting the signing of a treaty that disgraced Germany at the end of World War I.
He defended the deal while in Europe and suggested that more concessions could be made, including recognition of Iran's claimed right to enrich uranium and a new willingness to tolerate its continued development of ballistic missiles, another program that Trump had promised to eliminate as a central goal of the war.
“He took the United States into war, killing 13 soldiers, thousands of Iranian civilians and costing taxpayers $60 billion, to get rid of Iran's missile program. And now that he lost the war, he pretends it's no big deal,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.
“Simply inexcusable,” he added. “What a charlatan.”
