Trump signs agreement with Iran at Versailles
As he left Versailles on Wednesday night, after a dinner in honor of the 250th anniversary of American independence, Donald Trump told reporters for French TV waiting outside that he had signed the memorandum of understanding with Iran in the former palace of French kings.
“Did you sign the deal? Did you sign the MOU?” reporters asked.
“It’s signed, yeah,” Trump cupped his hands and shouted to reporters. “I signed it in Versailles,” the president added, making a gesture of signature and pointing back to the palace.
On social media, the historian Kevin Kruse reacted with disbelief to the president signing the agreement to end his war in the same location where Germany was forced to sign the humiliating treaty of Versailles in 1919, accepting its loss in the first world war.
“He signed an unconditional surrender at Versailles?” Kruse wrote. “Come the fuck on.”
The White House then released video of Trump adding his signature to the 14-point agreement at the dinner table in the palace.
Key events
Closing summary
With the president winging his way home from France on Air Force One, having signed what many observers call a surrender to Iran, at Versailles no less, this concludes our live coverage of the day in US politics. Here are the latest developments:
-
Donald Trump told reporters he signed the memorandum of understanding with Iran on Wednesday night in the same location where Germany surrendered at the end of the first world war. “I signed it in Versailles,” the president said.
-
Video of the signing was posted on social media first by Trump’s former caddy turned social media director, and then by the French president.
-
109 days after Trump said that eliminating Iran’s ballistic missiles was a primary cause of the joint US-Israeli war, the president told reporters it would be “unfair” for Iran to not have “some” ballistic missiles.
-
Trump told reporters in Paris on Wednesday that he is “not a big fan” of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade he signed in 2018, but was open to signing an extension of the pact known as the USMCA.
-
Earleir on Wednesday, oil prices rose more than 1% after Trump suggested that the US might not sign a new ceasefire agreement with Iran announced on Sunday.
-
The Republican senator Bill Cassidy has slammed the memorandum of understanding the Trump administration has reached with Iran – two days before both parties are set to sign it – as “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades”.
Macron releases video of Trump signing Iran agreement
Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, has posted video on social media that shows Donald Trump signing a copy of the memorandum to end the war with Iran in the palace of Versailles.
The video shared by Macron is slightly different from the clip posted earlier by Dan Scavino, Trump’s former golf caddy turned social media director, which appeared to show the US president signing a Persian-language copy of the agreement.
Macron’s video shows that Trump paused to tell the other dinner guests: “This was not easy, I can tell you,” before scribbling his signature, in Sharpie, on the document.
The French president also posted a second clip, showing Trump telling reporters: “I signed it in Versailles.”
There was no indication that the US president was aware that the 1919 surrender of Germany at the end of the first world war was signed in the same location.
Iran’s president holds up signed copy of agreement to end war with US and Israel
Irna, Iran’s official state news agency, has released a photograph of Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, holding up a Persian-language document, apparently showing his signature alongside that of Donald Trump on the agreement to end the war and start 60 days of negotiations over a final deal on issues including Iran’s nuclear program.
According to Reuters, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliament speaker who leads Iran’s negotiating team, told state TV: “Everything we sought to achieve through military action, we obtained several times over through negotiation; it was not even comparable.”
Trump signs agreement with Iran at Versailles
As he left Versailles on Wednesday night, after a dinner in honor of the 250th anniversary of American independence, Donald Trump told reporters for French TV waiting outside that he had signed the memorandum of understanding with Iran in the former palace of French kings.
“Did you sign the deal? Did you sign the MOU?” reporters asked.
“It’s signed, yeah,” Trump cupped his hands and shouted to reporters. “I signed it in Versailles,” the president added, making a gesture of signature and pointing back to the palace.
On social media, the historian Kevin Kruse reacted with disbelief to the president signing the agreement to end his war in the same location where Germany was forced to sign the humiliating treaty of Versailles in 1919, accepting its loss in the first world war.
“He signed an unconditional surrender at Versailles?” Kruse wrote. “Come the fuck on.”
The White House then released video of Trump adding his signature to the 14-point agreement at the dinner table in the palace.
Trump confirms that he thinks it would be ‘unfair’ for Iran to not have ballistic missiles
When he announced that the US and Israel had launched a war against Iran on 28 February, Donald Trump said that one of the reasons the attack was necessary was that Iran had been “developing long-range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas and could soon reach the American homeland”.
“We’re going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground,” the president insisted. “It will be totally, again, obliterated.”
On Wednesday, 109 days later, Trump told reporters in Paris that it would be “unfair” for Iran to not have “some” ballistic missiles.
“I’m saying that if other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some,” Trump said. “A ballistic missile is not the same things as what we’re talking about, when we talk nuclear. But if Saudi Arabia and Qatar and, they all have some, I would say, in relative proportion, I think it’s OK.”
A short time later, senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democratic, shared video of Trump confirming that Iran should be allowed to have ballistic missiles.
Murphy commented: “He took America to 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’s lost the war, he pretends like it’s no big deal. Just unforgivable. What a charlatan.”
Democratic senator Chris Murphy says terms of Iran agreement leave US ‘in a fundamentally worse position’
Speaking on the floor of the US Senate on Wednesday night, Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, offered a blistering account of the terms of the US agreement with Iran, “negotiated by real estate developers cosplaying as American diplomats”.
“I knew it was going to be a humiliating agreement. I didn’t know it was going to be this humiliating,” Murphy said. “I want the war to end. I’m willing to stomach a bad deal, but this agreement exposes what a colossal mistake it was: the biggest foreign policy blunder of 20 years to start this war, and why every hawk who cheerled us into war with Iran was wrong. We didn’t get anything that you thought we were going to get out of this.”
“Iran is making no new commitments. They are agreeing to open the strait. The strait was open before the war began. They are promising that they will not develop or obtain a nuclear weapon. They had already promised that before the war began. And they are agreeing to talk about restraining their nuclear research program. They were willing to talk about that prior to the war beginning,” Murphy said.
“The United States is committing immediately to release all oil sanctions and to let Iran trade oil for free all around the world. That is billions, billions of windfall dollars to the Iranian treasury,” he added. “The United States is agreeing to free up frozen Iranian money. Could be around $24bn that will be going immediately.”
“Iran is making no commitments on reductions or controls on their missile program or their drone program or their support for terrorism,” the senator went on. “In fact, you can see a video today of Donald Trump saying: ‘I think it’s cool for Iran to have missiles. I think it’s kind of unfair to say that Iran shouldn’t have missiles if everybody else has it.’ He literally said this on TV today.”
“The entire scope of this agreement basically boils down to a multibillion-dollar payment to Iran so that Iran opens the strait of Hormuz,” Murphy said. “And insult to injury: the text says that Iran promises to open the strait for … 10 years? Nope. Five years? A year? No. Iran says, we will open the strait of Hormuz for two months, toll-free. And then after that period of time, we will consult with the government of Oman on the tolling structure.
“I’m glad the war’s over, but I’m furious that it has resulted in our nation’s humiliation, in Iran becoming stronger and America becoming weaker,” Murphy concluded.
Trump says he is ‘not a big fan’ of USMCA, free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada he signed
Donald Trump told reporters in Paris on Wednesday that he is “not a big fan” of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade he signed in 2018, but was open to signing an extension of the pact known as the USMCA.
“I would rather not have the agreement, but I may sign it,” Trump told reporters at Paris Orly airport on his way to dinner at Versailles. “We do better as a country if we don’t have an agreement,” he said, without explaining why, then, he had directed officials in his first term to strike the deal, and in his current term to work on an extension.
“I’d rather have it terminated,” Trump added.
The US has to approve a renewal of the existing agreement by 1 July, or announce its intention to exit the pact, a process that would take 10 years.
US trade representatives are holding talks with Mexico this week in Washington on agriculture and another set of talks is scheduled for the week of 20 July in Mexico City.
US farmers are pressing Trump to extend the USMCA for another 16 years with duty-free farm products, ethanol access in Mexico and improved access to Canada’s largely closed dairy market.
US automakers also want an extension.
The six-year-old USMCA, which took effect in 2020, largely mirrored the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in sustaining a highly integrated North American economy, with nearly $1.6tn in annual trilateral trade.
Maryland Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen says he is ‘kicking the tires’ on a presidential run
Senator Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat who gained a national profile when he traveled to El Salvador last year to meet Kilmar Ábrego García, a resident of his state who was wrongly deported there by the Trump administration, said in an interview with NOTUS published on Wednesday that he recently visited New Hampshire because he is “kind of kicking the tires a little bit” on a possible 2028 presidential campaign.
Van Hollen added that critics of his trip to meet Ábrego had been proven wrong, since that was a moment when it was clear that the inside conventional wisdom was just dead wrong, because a majority of the country, other than a small Maga segment, agreed that violating someone’s constitutional rights is a bad idea”.
The senator, who has been a critic of US policy in Israel and Palestine, also said that “any credible Democratic presidential candidate has to be willing to hold the government of Israel accountable when it is violating human rights, and violating international law and violating US interests”.
Van Hollen also said that Democrats should reject funding from the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac).
“What Aipac demands of candidates it supports is unconditional support for the actions of the government of Israel,” Van Hollen noted. “Unconditional taxpayer support of the government of Israel is something nobody should sign up for in my view.”
Oil prices rise after Trump suggests Iran ceasefire agreement might not be signed
Oil prices rose more than 1% on Wednesday after Donald Trump riffed at his news conference in France on the possibility that the US might not sign a new ceasefire agreement with Iran announced on Sunday.
“So the deal with reached with Iran on Sunday will be signed shortly. Tomorrow, maybe the next day … I think. You know, subject – deals, my whole life is all about deals. That’s all I ever did was make deals, and crazy things happen with deals,” the president said, referring to real estate transactions.
“I’ve gone into deals where, its a guarantee, no way it can not be signed, and it doesn’t get signed,” he added. “But we’re going to most likely sign a deal.”
Trump also suggested that the US could resume bombing Iran if the nation’s leaders did not “behave”.
GOP senator slams Trump’s Iran deal as ‘worst foreign policy blunder in decades’
The Republican senator Bill Cassidy has slammed the memorandum of understanding the Trump administration has reached with Iran – two days before both parties are set to sign it – as “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades”.
The Louisiana senator, who lost his primary last month to a Trump-backed challenger, wrote on X:
[Former president Ronald] Reagan is rolling over in his grave. Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now, Iran gets to build brand-new infrastructure under this deal.
Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped. This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.
Before the text was released, Cassidy had already been commenting on what was being reported, while cautioning that he hadn’t seen the details.
He told a phone press conference of Louisiana reporters on Tuesday: “This is a bad deal, if the details remain the same. The deal, as I’ve heard it, makes your allies weaker and Iran stronger.”
And this morning, he told a reporter with Nexstar: “The details I’ve seen so far look awful … This will go down as a tremendous foreign policy blunder”.
The day so far
-
Donald Trump abruptly derailed the confirmation process for his own nominee as the US’s top intelligence chief, Jay Clayton, early this morning, in a move that will allow the US president’s controversial selection for acting director of national security, Bill Pulte, to assume the role and remain in place for at least several weeks until Clayton is confirmed. Tom Cotton, a Republican senator and chair of the intelligence committee, initially said on X that the hearing would go ahead as planned “unless the president directs [Clayton] not to appear or withdraws his nomination”. Trump later directed Clayton not to appear and the hearing was cancelled, which Cotton called “regrettable”. My colleague Cate Brown has the story.
-
Trump also responded to criticism of his ceasefire deal with Iran, warning at the G7 summit that he was prepared to go back to dropping bombs and insisting the deal did not require the US to pay even 10 cents to Iran. Here’s Patrick Wintour’s report.
-
Senior US officials dictated the memorandum of understanding with Iran to journalists after days of secrecy. According to the officials, the draft agreement includes a new “minimum” standard for down-blending of highly enriched Iranian uranium and has provisions to ensure the “territorial integrity” of Lebanon after Israel’s continued attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanese territory. In return, the US will move to waive, but not eliminate, some wide-ranging sanctions against Iran once the deal is signed. The US draft of the agreement also secures toll-free passage of the strait of Hormuz for only 60 days, and it does not preclude fees in the future, the officials said. The accord, which Trump said today is “not final”, is due to be signed on Friday in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.
-
The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged for the fourth time this year after its first meeting under new chair, Kevin Warsh, a Trump appointee who has taken over the central bank during a tumultuous time for the US economy. Here’s Gaya Gupta’s report.
Fed begins Warsh era by keeping rates on hold, but sees hike later this year
Gaya Gupta
And we have that now. The Federal Reserve has left interest rates unchanged for the fourth time this year after its first meeting under new chair, Kevin Warsh, a Donald Trump appointee who has taken over the central bank during a tumultuous time for the US economy.
“Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace despite elevated uncertainty that owes, in part, to the conflict in the Middle East,” the Fed’s open market committee said in a short statement. “Productivity growth and capital investment are strong. Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little.”
The Fed was widely expected to keep rates at a range of 3.5% to 3.75%, where it has remained since December.
The Fed also removed in its monthly policy statement the easing bias, which previously a signal that indicated that the central bank was looking for further opportunities to make a rate cut as their next rate change. Last month, three Fed governors dissented over the inclusion of this easing bias.
Warsh begins his four-year term as chair at a time when the US economy has been rattled by heightened inflation and geopolitical uncertainty.
A sharp spike in energy prices caused by Trump’s war on Iran has pushed inflation to 4.2% – the highest level the US has seen since 2023 and far from the Fed’s 2% target. Though the announcement of a ceasefire deal between the US and Iran sent oil prices tumbling to a three-month low, it will likely take months for energy prices to return to prewar levels.
Meanwhile, hourly earnings dropped to a seasonally adjusted 0.7%, indicating that price increases have stripped out wage gains over the past year.
But it’s unclear whether higher inflation will ever convince a majority of the Fed’s 12 voting members to call for a rate increase. Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, has increased only mildly, to 2.9% from the year prior. The country’s labor market has also remained relatively strong, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 4.3%.
Even as Americans continue to balk at higher prices, Trump has continued to advocate for lower rates but said last week that he doesn’t “want to have a big influence” on Warsh.
“Kevin is fantastic, and I want him to do whatever he wants,” Trump said in an interview with Meet the Press on NBC News, while also reiterating his desire for a rate cut.
Kevin Warsh is due to hold his first news conference as chair of the Federal Reserve shortly, following his first federal open markets committee meeting in the role, where he is expected to announce where the Fed sees interest rates going.
Before that, we expect the Fed to release a policy statement alongside its rate decision, and economic projections for where policymakers see interest rates going over the coming years.
Senior US officials dictate US-Iran memorandum to journalists
Senior US officials have dictated the memorandum of understanding with Iran to journalists after days of secrecy.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to read the draft, which Iran has not released, ahead of a formal signing ceremony set for Friday in Switzerland.
According to the officials, the draft agreement includes a new “minimum” standard for down-blending of highly enriched Iranian uranium and has provisions to ensure the “territorial integrity” of Lebanon after Israel’s continued attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanese territory.
In return, the US will move to waive, but not eliminate, some wide-ranging sanctions against Iran once the deal is signed.
The US draft of the agreement also secures toll-free passage of the strait of Hormuz for only 60 days, and it does not preclude fees in the future, the officials said.
The accord is due to be signed on Friday in Bürgenstock, Switzerland. The Associated Press reports that it also envisions Iran receiving at least $300bn to rebuild after the war, citing leaked copies of an interim agreement that officials say broadly matches the document.
