In mid-June 2026, the US–Iran conflict underwent a dramatic narrative reversal. After the military confrontation peaked — Iranian missile strikes on Israel, Israeli airstrikes on Iranian soil, and direct US strikes on Iran — the two sides switched from a track of "total war" to one of a "peace agreement" in less than a week. On June 12, details of a draft 14-point memorandum of understanding were published by Iranian media; the US side declared that "the war is over," but Trump's own record of nearly 40 prior claims that a "deal is imminent" meant any announcement was greeted with structural skepticism.
I. The Apex and the Turn of the Military Confrontation
In early June, the US–Iran conflict entered a phase of full military confrontation. Iran fired multiple rounds of ballistic missiles at Israel; Israel immediately launched airstrikes on several Iranian cities (Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz). The US military then carried out direct strikes on Iran, and the Strait of Hormuz was fully closed. But around June 8, Trump began publicly urging Israel not to retaliate against Iran — a clear signal of a switch from the military track to the diplomatic one.
The decisive factor behind the turn was economic cost. US strikes on Iran had continued for weeks; munitions stockpiles were strained, war costs soared, and domestic inflation pressure mounted (US CPI rose to a three-year high of 4.2%, with energy accounting for 60%). A spike in global oil prices also bore down on Trump's electoral prospects, adding to the domestic political pressure.
"Before 2016, China bought soybeans, China bought Boeing aircraft, the Strait of Hormuz was open. Everyone could invest in Iran, sanctions on Iran had been lifted, Iran was gradually giving up its nuclear weapons… And then so many planes crashed, so many people died, right? And we're back to square one."
— AJ Xiaowai (a podcast host), during a discussion of the memorandum's contents
Yang Sheng (a commentator) offered his own answer in summing up: "Whose war did this ceasefire stop? This ceasefire only stopped Trump's war." — The line captures the essence of that sixteen-year callback between the 2016 JCPOA and the 2026 memorandum.
AJ Xiaowai added a statistic that silenced both Chinese hosts for a few seconds: the Iranian stock market rose 79% in the two weeks after news of the memorandum broke. "I won't say Iran won, but at least the market thinks it did." Some export-oriented firms and companies directly struck by the US military were suspended from trading, but apart from that, "the Iranian stock market is booming, and people are full of hope about the future."
II. The 14-Point Memorandum of Understanding: Framework and Controversy
As reported by IRNA (the Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran's state news agency) and the Mehr News Agency, the memorandum's core provisions include:
- Full ceasefire: The document aims to end the war on all fronts, Lebanon included
- Strait of Hormuz: Iran will not give up its authority over the strait; the memorandum discusses only the "normalization of maritime traffic"
- Unfreezing of assets: Requires the unfreezing of $24 billion in frozen Iranian funds, half of which must be delivered immediately upon signing
- Reconstruction plan: Includes an Iranian reconstruction plan totaling at least $300 billion
- Nuclear talks: Iran will make no new nuclear commitments immediately, but will engage in nuclear negotiations during a 60-day negotiation period
- Missile program: Ballistic missiles and the proxy question are "completely excluded" from the memorandum
Trump claimed the memorandum was "very conceptual," while the Iranian side said the text "still requires review and finalization by the relevant bodies" — the gap in how the two sides described the status of the agreement betrayed a trust deficit from the very start.
III. Trump's Credibility Bind: Nearly 40 Bad Checks
A review by CNN found that since the Iran war broke out, Trump has claimed nearly 40 times that a deal was "imminent." His pattern is highly repetitive: after a military escalation he publicly declares that "Iran has capitulated" and that a "deal is right around the corner," only for the claim to be contradicted by events or for him to walk back the promise himself. Baorong Wanwu Henghe Shui (a Weibo commentary account whose name means roughly "the Ganges waters that embrace all things") pinpointed this "blocked at both ends" bind: announcing a deal to feed the market good news, yet having to deny the details for the sake of "winology" — the internet-era art of claiming victory no matter what actually happened.
IV. Gulf Neighbors and Regional Spillover
The regional spillover of the war forms an important backdrop to this peace gambit. Iranian missiles struck Kuwait's airport, prompting Kuwait to expel Iranian diplomats. Bahrain's AR-327 early-warning radar station was hit by a suspected Iranian attack. In Omani waters, three tankers carrying Indian crew members were attacked within four days, and India summoned US diplomats three times in protest.
Iran collects between $1.5 million and $2 million in revenue from every ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz. This institutionalized "strait tax" means that Iran's authority over Hormuz is an institutional arrangement carrying substantial economic returns — not something it can give up lightly.
The UAE's "Protection Money" — The Marketization of Regional Security
On June 13, Reuters disclosed a previously unreported transaction: the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had paid Iran a total of roughly $20 billion in "protection money." The first tranche of $3 billion had already arrived. The narrative value of this deal far exceeds its financial figure — while the lenses of the international media were trained on the 14-point memorandum of the US–Iran talks, the small Gulf states were buying security in their own way. The last time Iran directly attacked the UAE was May 4; between that day and the moment news of the peace deal spread around the world, the UAE chose not to rely on American security guarantees, instead buying security directly, with hard cash, from a regional military power.
The UAE foreign ministry's flat denial — "we did not pay" — shattered Reuters' original report within just one hour. But "deniability" is itself standard equipment in international dealings: things may happen, but they cannot be admitted.
V. Signing Day's Multiple Narratives: Confirmation, Denial, and the Swiss Fallback
June 14 became the most narratively dense day of this gambit. At least two parallel yet mutually contradictory storylines emerged that day:
- The Trump line (Truth Social): The deal had been signed, taking effect on the 14th; the strait would reopen; B-2 bombers would reach deep into the granite mountains to handle the nuclear waste
- The Iran line (Fars News Agency): Nothing had been signed, no final decision had yet been made, and "a signing within the coming days is not ruled out"
- The Pakistan line (Foreign Ministry): An electronic signing ceremony was scheduled for June 14, to be followed by face-to-face meetings in Switzerland
The narrative of June 14 as "signing day" shifted from a "fixed time anchor" to a "way-station in a two-stage negotiation." The electronic signing ceremony may indeed have taken place, but it resembled a ceremonial confirmation of a framework agreement rather than the final landing of substantive terms. What will truly decide the fate of the deal is next week's face-to-face talks in Switzerland — and until then, both sides' public narratives will keep to a dual-track strategy of "confirmation + denial."
Israel's Airstrike on Beirut — The Structural Collapse on the Night of Signing Day
On the evening of June 14, the sequence of events completed a closed loop within an hour: the Israeli air force bombed Beirut → Trump's signing declaration on Truth Social attempted to offset it → Iran kept the Strait of Hormuz closed → Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf declared that "continuing to advance the dialogue has become impossible." Israel's military action handed Iran a moral exit from the talks; the framework of the deal was not formally withdrawn, but its political foundation was, within three hours, fundamentally hollowed out.
Baorong Wanwu Henghe Shui summed up Israel's response to the US–Iran agreement in eight characters of classical Chinese: "Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir: this is a reckless decree; we shall not comply." — The memorandum holds no binding force over Israel.
VI. Final Confirmation of the Deal (June 15)
Early on the morning of June 15, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was the first to announce that the US–Iran peace agreement had "now been reached"; Trump confirmed it on Truth Social, and Iran's Supreme National Security Council issued a formal statement. The three confirmations came on the same day, but the emphasis of each differed.
The Mehr News Agency began releasing the memorandum's 14 clauses in batches. Judging by the terms, Iran had achieved nearly everything that had been unimaginable before the war: the complete lifting of the US naval blockade within 30 days, a suspension of sales sanctions on Iranian oil and petrochemical products, and an Iranian reconstruction plan of no less than $300 billion to be submitted by the United States and its allies — while the missile program and support for the regional "axis of resistance" were explicitly excluded from the final nuclear negotiations.
Shen Yi (a professor of international relations at Fudan University) reported in the evening: 17 countries had expressed "willingness to lift sanctions." Once Iran takes verifiable steps on the nuclear issue, the chain reaction of sanctions relief could come faster than expected.
International crude prices promptly fell markedly; Brent crude futures at one point dropped to $83.51 (down 4.37%). Since shipping through Hormuz was disrupted in late February, oil prices had run at high levels for months; the expectation that the strait would reopen directly compressed the risk premium.
Israel's Isolation and Anger
Former defense minister Avigdor Lieberman called it "a disaster from Israel's point of view"; opposition leader Yair Lapid said it would be "one of the most stunning failures in Israel's diplomatic and security policy." Netanyahu himself chose silence, unwilling to offend Trump. In an interview with Axios that day, Trump fumed over Israel's airstrike on Beirut just hours before the signing: "Why the hell did Bibi launch that strike? I was livid."
VII. Confirmation of the Signing Venue — Bürgenstock (June 16)
The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs formally confirmed: the signing ceremony would be held on June 19 at Bürgenstock in the canton of Nidwalden, Switzerland — not Geneva, as widely reported earlier. Iranian parliamentary speaker Ghalibaf and US Vice President JD Vance would attend together — each side was sending its number two, lending a "framework" memorandum a political weight beyond its technical importance.
That same day, meeting the Emir of Qatar, Trump declared: "Now we're going to focus particularly on Ukraine… the Iran issue is moving to the back burner." He thanked China and Russia — "friends" — for the help they provided during the process, saying the two countries had helped the United States reach a deal with Iran, "or at least had not undermined the US blockade by sending oil and gas tankers through the Strait of Hormuz."
VIII. On Trust
Whether it is Trump's nearly 40 hollow claims that a deal is "imminent," or Iran's insistence that the text is "not yet finalized" even after it has been agreed, both sides are performing for their domestic audiences within their own narratives. Between the United States and Iran, a real agreement is not the resolution of disagreements but the institutionalization of disagreement management. A memorandum may pause a war, but it cannot dissolve 34 years of structural hostility.
IX. War Reignited — From the Memorandum's Collapse to the Full-Scale Escalation of July 19
On July 7, US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced a new round of strikes on Iran, hitting more than 80 targets in the first wave. On July 13, the Trump administration formally notified Congress that military operations had resumed as of July 7, citing Iran's violation of the June 17 understanding and its attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The US side also announced the restoration of a naval blockade on Iranian ports and shipping. From this moment on, the memorandum that in June had been hailed as a diplomatic breakthrough was unilaterally sentenced to death.
The Unfolding of a Combined Strategy: Air Strikes, Naval Blockade, and Economic Pressure
US military operations continued to expand thereafter, displaying a clear layered structure.
Air layer: eight nights of sustained airstrikes. CENTCOM issued strike notifications for days on end; targets covered coastal surveillance systems in southern Iran, air-defense facilities, missile and drone storage bases, naval facilities, and key transport corridors linking to the port of Bandar Abbas. By July 19, the US military had carried out airstrikes for eight consecutive nights, keeping the initiative on the battlefield at a rhythm of suppression and ensuring Iran could not use the cover of darkness to conceal and repair damaged facilities.
Sea layer: a de facto blockade of the Hormuz shipping lane. In the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Oman, and the Strait of Hormuz, the US military intercepted or diverted multiple ships. Shipping data showed that Gulf exports of crude oil and condensate at one point rebounded in July to 12–13 million barrels per day, but remained about 32% below pre-war levels. The daily number of tankers transiting the strait recently fell at one point to just three — the lowest since May. Saudi Arabia has already rerouted most of its crude exports to the Red Sea port of Yanbu to reduce its dependence on the strait.
Infrastructure layer: the security red line of nuclear and energy facilities. Iran said the construction site of the Darkhovin nuclear power project, under construction in its southwestern Khuzestan Province, had been attacked. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said there was no nuclear material at the site and that no radiological risk had so far been detected. Even so, military action against a nuclear facility and its surroundings in itself carries grave political and diplomatic consequences, and further erodes the basis for cooperation between Iran and the IAEA.
Iran's Retaliation Logic: Transmitting the Cost of War to America's Regional Allies
Facing sustained US airstrikes, Iran retaliated with missiles, drones, maritime interdiction, and strikes on US bases in the region. Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei stated that repeated US violations of the understanding proved that the commitments Trump signed lacked credibility.
The reach of Iran's strikes has extended beyond Iranian territory and the Strait of Hormuz, gradually expanding into neighboring countries that host US forces or provide them with military support — launching missiles and drones toward Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, and others, and striking US facilities in those areas.
The gravest episode: the July 17 attack on the base in Jordan. Iran struck a base used by US forces in Jordan, killing two US service members, leaving one missing, and wounding several others. Fox News commentator Joey Jones said bluntly on air that the Trump administration had repeatedly insisted Iran's military capabilities had been destroyed, but "reality slapped us in the face." Jordan's official response that followed was a telling series of moves: the foreign minister issued a formal statement claiming that there are no US military bases on Jordanian soil — the implication being that what Iran had struck was a target on the planet Cybertron. This was both a risk-avoidance maneuver in the face of Iran's retaliation and an exposure of the Gulf states' true reluctance to be dragged into the US–Iran conflict.
Parts of Kuwait's power, water, and desalination infrastructure were attacked, seriously threatening the safety of the region's civilian infrastructure. Iran's retaliation logic thus becomes clear: by threatening US forces abroad, Gulf infrastructure, and international energy shipping, it transmits the cost of war to America's regional partners and to global markets, pressuring the countries concerned to push on Washington. The United States, for its part, seeks to degrade Iran's ability to use the Strait of Hormuz as a strategic lever by striking Iran's coastal forces and enforcing a naval blockade. The contest between the two sides over the strait has become the core of this round of the conflict.
The Quantified Impact on the Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly one-fifth of the world's oil shipments. Since the conflict resumed, ship transits through the strait have fallen sharply again, and the impact on the global economy is transmitting from oil-price volatility to inflation, transport costs, and monetary policy. European financial media are broadly worried that a rebound in energy prices will add inflationary pressure and shape the policy choices of the European Central Bank and the Bank of England. Asian countries depend heavily on Gulf oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG); a prolonged disruption of the shipping lane would directly affect their energy security, manufacturing costs, and supply-chain stability. The greater risk is that Iran, through regional proxies, may extend maritime pressure to the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — if both straits were severely disrupted at once, the energy and trade corridors linking Asia, Europe, and the Middle East would face systemic risk.
Cracks in US Domestic Politics: The Constitutional Dispute over War Powers
The Trump administration has explained this round of operations as protecting US personnel, safeguarding the safety of international navigation, degrading Iran's missile and drone capabilities, and preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet opposition in Congress and in the court of public opinion is growing.
Attempts at constraint from both chambers. In early June, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution limiting the president's authority to use force against Iran, 215 to 208; on June 23, the Senate passed a similar resolution, 50 to 48, demanding the withdrawal of the relevant military forces absent a congressional declaration of war or authorization. The votes in both chambers show that some Republican lawmakers, too, have begun to question the legal basis and strategic payoff of a protracted war.
The "cooldown reset" controversy. The Trump administration maintains that resuming military operations on July 7 started a new 60-day clock under the War Powers Resolution — effectively a cooldown reset, recalculating the permitted duration of operations. This interpretation has been challenged by Democrats and some Republican lawmakers. The core of the dispute: can the president, by declaring a ceasefire, resuming hostilities, and restarting the clock, circumvent Congress's constitutional authority over war indefinitely?
China's Position and Diplomatic Framework
From China's position, the military strikes carried out by the United States and Israel against Iran without authorization from the UN Security Council violate international law and the basic norms governing international relations, and are a major source of the region's continuing deterioration. China supports Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty, security, territorial integrity, and national dignity, while stressing that the sovereign security of all Gulf countries must likewise be respected.
The four-point proposal previously put forward by China's leadership for maintaining and promoting peace and stability in the Middle East — commitment to peaceful coexistence, to national sovereignty, to the international rule of law, and to a holistic approach balancing development and security — has been given fresh practical significance by this round of escalation. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stressed on multiple occasions that the fundamental condition for restoring normal, safe transit through the strait is a ceasefire and an end to hostilities; that Security Council action should serve to ease tensions, not confer legitimacy on unauthorized military operations.
Section 64 records a full cycle — "the complete unfolding of a post-memorandum war cycle." Over the twelve days from July 7 to July 19, the US–Iran conflict completed a full escalation loop: airstrikes begin → targets expand → Iran retaliates across multiple domains → US casualties → congressional constraint → global energy shock → restatement of China's position.
During this period, each side also confirmed the other's "new ceiling" and "new floor": US airstrikes and blockade cannot force Iran to negotiate, yet Iran's asymmetric retaliation cannot force the US military to withdraw either. The conflict has thus entered an equilibrium in which "both sides know they cannot win, but neither dares to stop."