U.S. and ​Iranian officials said they had reached an agreement to end their war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a preliminary pact that sent oil prices falling but leaves the fate of Tehran’s ‌nuclear program to further negotiations.

While still a framework, the deal marked the biggest breakthrough towards resolving the conflict that has killed thousands and upended energy markets since it began with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in February.

“The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete,” U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform at around 5:30 p.m. in Washington (2130 GMT) on Sunday. His post came shortly after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose country has served as a mediator, announced a deal had been struck early on Monday ​local time.

The memorandum of understanding is scheduled to be officially signed on Friday in Switzerland.

The precise terms were not immediately known. Sharif said in a post on X that the pact called for “the immediate and ​permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”

LEBANON HAS BEEN A STICKING POINT

Lebanon has suffered the deadliest spillover of the conflict, with thousands of people killed ⁠and some 1.2 million people uprooted by an Israeli offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which opened fire on Israel in support of Tehran on March 2.

The country has been a sticking point in negotiations, with Israel and ​Hezbollah ignoring calls from Trump and others to stop their attacks on each other in recent weeks.

The secretariat of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said war and military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon, would end permanently starting on ​Monday night.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said there must be a complete halt to Israeli attacks against Lebanon and wrote on Telegram that the U.S. bears responsibility for implementing the framework deal.

Nabih Berri, speaker of the Lebanese parliament and a Hezbollah ally, said the deal laid the foundation for security and stability in the region, including in Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to respond publicly to the U.S.-Iran agreement.

But Defence Minister Israel Katz said that Israel would oppose any pressure to withdraw its forces from areas it ​is occupying in southern Lebanon.

“This is the main lesson from the events of October 7,” Katz said. “Prime Minister Netanyahu made this clear to U.S. President Trump and other senior American officials, and I also clarified it yesterday to ​U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.”

STRAIT TO REOPEN

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said a more expansive agreement on the wider conflict would be negotiated during a 60-day ceasefire period, including sanctions relief for Iran.

The fate of Iran’s nuclear program, another thorny issue, ‌will also be ⁠addressed in those later talks, sources previously told Reuters.

Trump said the Strait of Hormuz, a major shipping route for global oil and gas supplies that Iran has effectively shut down for months, would open on Friday, and that he had ordered the end of the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.

“Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” Trump wrote.

Oil prices fell on the news. Brent crude futures fell 4% in early trading on Monday while stock markets jumped.

The war has become a political liability at home for Trump and his fellow Republicans in Congress, with public opinion polls showing Americans deeply frustrated by rising gas prices ahead of November’s midterm elections. But Trump has also faced pressure ​from members of his own party who insist that ​Iran’s nuclear program must be completely shut down.

During his ⁠first term, Trump withdrew the U.S. from a 2015 multilateral Iran deal, negotiated by Democratic President Barack Obama, that lifted sanctions on Tehran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program and international inspections.

Iran responded by ramping up its enrichment of uranium, producing more than 400 kg (around 900 pounds) of material at close to bomb-grade purity.

RELEASE OF FROZEN ​ASSETS

The agreement was sealed despite an Israeli strike on Lebanon on Sunday that drew criticism from both Iran and Trump.

Netanyahu has disregarded American demands that Israel curb ​its military action in Lebanon to ⁠allow the U.S. to reach a deal with Iran, saying it will retain freedom of operations there. Meanwhile, Iran made a full ceasefire in Lebanon an important component of its demands.

Leaders outside the Middle East welcomed the announcement.

In a joint statement, Britain, Germany, France and Italy said they were prepared to lift sanctions on Iran in response to “clear, verifiable steps” to limit its nuclear program.

China also welcomed the deal.

Before the deal was announced, a senior Iranian official told Reuters that, under the terms ⁠of the draft, ​the U.S. would agree to release $25 billion of frozen Iranian assets. The Trump administration has previously said any release of Iranian money would ​only take place once Iran has fulfilled certain conditions under a peace deal.

A U.S. official, also speaking before the announcement, said the agreement would ultimately lead to the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program, with its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to be destroyed and removed. The senior Iranian ​official said the draft deal would allow Iran, which denies seeking a nuclear bomb, to dilute its enriched uranium inside the country.

Thomson Reuters

The main Nuremberg trial ended, Winston Churchill warned of an iron curtain descending across Europe, It’s a Wonderful Life received its premiere and, at Jamaica hospital in the borough of Queens, New York, Donald John Trump was born.

It was 1946, also the birth year of George W Bush and Bill Clinton, but on Sunday the current US president celebrates his 80th birthday in a style uniquely his own. Trump will stage a night of cage fighting on the once-pristine White House south lawn as part of events marking the 250th anniversary of US independence.

The blend of visceral bloodsport with political spectacle under metal scaffolding may offer brief respite for a president also consumed with an unpopular war, rising inflation, plunging poll numbers and a foe not even he can bully, bomb or outrun: Father Time.

“Donald Trump has been showing signs of his age for quite some time,” said Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill. “It’s on display almost daily as he struggles to stay awake during official meetings, he is more irritable and going on rage tangents and throwing temper tantrums when he doesn’t get his way. These are not signs of a well-adjusted adult approaching 80 years old.”

Trump is the oldest US president sworn into office and, some critics say, showing alarming evidence of decline as he becomes an octogenarian, a status that more than half his predecessors never achieved and that found Gerald Ford playing golf, Jimmy Carter immersed in humanitarian work and Ronald Reagan organising his memoirs.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll in February found 61% of Americans thought Trump had become more erratic with age, and another survey in April showed a majority concerned about his temperament and mental sharpness.

The physical evidence is increasingly difficult for his aides to conceal, though they aggressively project a narrative of vigour. The president has been photographed with bruised hands and swollen ankles, ailments his medical staff continually brush off as a “slight” issue. He sees 22 medical specialists, an apparent new bar for presidents.

His public calendar has grown notably sparse, dominated by hours of nebulous “executive time” and behind-closed-doors policy meetings. After a flurry of travel early in the year, he has largely retreated to the cocoons of the White House and his clubs in Florida and New Jersey since launching the Iran war in February.

Then there is the sleeping. Trump has increasingly been caught on camera apparently nodding off at public events, most recently at an NBA basketball finals game at New York’s Madison Square Garden. When clips of his shut eyes go viral, his aides claim he was merely blinking or listening intently.

The White House spokesperson Davis Ingle has insisted that Trump remains “the sharpest and most accessible president in American history”. The president himself frequently boasts of “acing” cognitive tests that would have flummoxed past presidents.

But to observers the spin is not only unconvincing but counterproductive. Kurt Bardella, a political commentator and former congressional aide, said: “It’s not surprising that someone who’s on the doorstep of being octogenarian is showing signs of ageing. Father Time is undefeated: that applies to everybody including Donald Trump and I would have more confidence in him as commander-in chief if he would just admit that rather than try to hide it.”

Bardella added: “Hiding it is a sign of weakness. Being transparent, forthright, honest about it would actually be a sign a strength. The fact the White House seems to be going to all these ridiculous and laughable measures to try to convince us that he’s not actually ageing is insulting to American people, it’s idiotic, it reeks of desperation, and it makes everyone believe that there’s more going on than meets the eye. And what meets the eye isn’t that great. Secrecy breeds mistrust.”

If that complaint sounds familiar it is because Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, who was 78 when he took office in 2021, faced similar charges. White House officials were accused of covering up Biden’s failing capacities. Jill Biden, the former first lady, wrote in a new memoir that she feared her husband had had a stroke when he delivered a feeble debate performance that forced him to abandon his campaign for reelection.

Bill Whalen, a policy fellow at the Hoover Institution thinktank in Stanford,

California, said: “It’s very difficult, if not a double standard, for every Democrat to criticise Donald Trump as too old and too out of touch, with Democrats having basically zipped their lips in 2024 and not dared say the same about Joe Biden. In this age of whataboutism it is another bad case of whataboutism.”

Trump’s critics, however, reject the comparison, contending that the concerns around him are greater by orders of magnitude.

Setmayer, who now runs the Seneca Project, a female-led political action committee, said: “There is a fair discussion to be had about a president’s physical and emotional condition, no matter what age they are. However, if Joe Biden was exhibiting the same level of cognitive incoherence and physical decline in public the way Donald Trump currently is, the apoplexy on the right would be palpable.”

Such commentators argue that Trump’s already volatile psyche is fraying as his stamina wanes. Even with the nation at war with Iran and citizens strained by the cost of living, he touts a $1.4bn White House ballroom, revamp of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool and plans for a huge triumphal arch.

His speeches, which have long been rife with non sequiturs and long stories, increasingly ramble, repeat and take baffling tangents. He is prone to more scattergun statements that give Republican strategists heartburn, such as “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation”, “I don’t care about the midterms and “I love the inflation”. At dead of night he pushes election conspiracy theories and torrents of AI slop on social media.

Nowhere was this more evident than during an explosive confrontation last week with the journalist Kristen Welker on the NBC show Meet the Press. Factchecked on his false claims of election rigging, Trump flew off the handle and said Welker was either “crooked” or “stupid”, then abruptly ended the interview: “Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you darling. Have a good time.”

Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, watched the broadcast with genuine alarm. “The man was out of control,” he said. “How he kept himself from having a heart attack or stroke, I don’t know. You saw his face. He’s orange at the best of times but he was oscillating between red and orange. I really did think he was going to have a heart attack.”

As for Trump’s penchant for napping, Sabato offers a silver lining of sorts. “You shouldn’t laugh but it’s the only time he looks peaceful,” he quipped. “It’s the only time his mouth is shut and he’s not saying something obnoxious, so I’m always grateful when he nods off.

“But what that proves to me is there’s nobody in his family or his staff that can control him in any way. There’s no way somebody his age should be staying up practically the whole night or intermittently waking up and sending out these crazy memes – dozens of them sometimes. It’s unbelievable.”

The prospect of such a man having access to the nuclear codes would typically prompt discussion of his cabinet invoking the 25th amendment to the constitution to remove him from office. No one expects Trump’s team of loyalists to even remotely consider such an option. Republicans in Congress have shown flickers of dissent lately but preserved a conspiracy of silence around the age issue.

Trump is therefore expected to remain in office for his 81st and 82nd birthdays, potentially as a lame duck president facing political mortality if Democrats win one or both chambers of Congress. For many people such age

brings wisdom, wistfulness and a softening of hard edges, but for Trump it seems only to exacerbate his character and make him more truly himself.

Gwenda Blair, a Trump biographer, said: “Any sign of grace? Perspective? Those have not emerged. Those are the kind of rewards of being older that many people experience but not him. Instead he’s doubling down on the exact same behaviour patterns that he has always had: what’s in it for me and how can I get the maximum out of it and then more than that?”

The questions over the judgment and temperament of the world’s most powerful man, and the potential risks to the global order, will only grow louder in the coming years, according to Larry Jacobs, the director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota.

“The recklessness of decisions, the failure to think in a logical evidence-based way, the acting on impulse, the losing track of reality versus the talking points – all these things are being accelerated by Trump’s age. Most presidents’ skill set begins to fade as they age; Trump has got such a limited toolkit that it’s putting him over the edge.”

Jacobs warned: “America and the world are in for a frightening two years. Trump has too much power for someone with so little connection to reality. Age is making Trump an even more dangerous president.”

David Smith– the Guardian

President Donald Trump on Thursday said the United States and Iran could sign a peace deal as soon as this weekend that ​would reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, but Iran countered that it had not reached a final decision on an agreement.

The deal, if confirmed, would be ‌the most significant diplomatic breakthrough yet to end the three-month-old war, which has killed thousands and sent global energy prices sharply higher.

Iranian media reported Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei as saying that large parts of the text under negotiation have been finalized but Iran would not compromise on its red lines.

“We have not reached a final conclusion on this matter,” he said. “This is a very important issue that is currently being reviewed by the relevant decision-making bodies.”

Trump, ​meanwhile, told reporters at the White House: “We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran.”

“The strait will officially open as soon as we sign, which could be soon, ​very soon, maybe over the weekend in Europe,” Trump said, adding Vice President JD Vance could sign for the United States.

When asked if Iran’s ⁠Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei approved the deal, Trump said: “I understand the answer is yes.”

Trump’s announcement came after he called off planned military strikes on Iran, citing progress in talks. U.S. stocks rose ​and oil prices fell on the news.

Since mid-March, Trump has repeatedly claimed that a deal with Iran to end the war was close. The two sides have traded strikes this week, straining a ​ceasefire announced in April.

“It’s a very strong memorandum of understanding that is a little conceptual,” Trump told reporters.

Trump has repeatedly said that any peace deal must ensure Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon. Iran denies it is seeking such a weapon.

Iran’s demands include the lifting of international sanctions, the release of billions of dollars in frozen assets and recognition of its control of the Strait of Hormuz.

“The big thing is there will be no nuclear weapons in ​Iran. That means not developed and not purchased,” Trump later said during a campaign event held by telephone.

TIT-FOR-TAT STRIKES

The war has killed thousands of people, mainly in Iran and Lebanon, and ​hit the world economy by pushing up energy prices since the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran on February 28.

In recent days, the conflict has intensified despite a tenuous ceasefire that took effect in early ‌April.

After ⁠a U.S. Apache helicopter was downed, Trump this week ordered new strikes around the Strait of Hormuz over two days.

At the same time, Iran launched missile and drone attacks on U.S. bases in the region.

Bahrain’s interior ministry said on Thursday an 11-year-old girl suffered minor injuries and homes were damaged after debris fell from Iranian drones that were intercepted and destroyed.

Trump had said earlier Thursday that the United States would hit Iran “very hard tonight” and wanted eventually to take Iran’s oil infrastructure hub Kharg Island.

The island handles 90% of Iran’s oil exports and seizing it would give the United ​States the ability to severely disrupt Iran’s energy ​trade, placing enormous pressure on Tehran’s economy.

Iranian ⁠state media said early on Friday that the country’s forces prevented a tanker from transiting the Strait of Hormuz without coordination. One-fifth of the world’s energy shipments normally travel through the narrow waterway, but it has been largely shut since the war began.

DOMESTIC PRESSURES

The conflict has become a political headache ​for the White House, with polls showing Trump’s approval ratings sinking amid voter anger over high gasoline prices.

Some Republicans have openly worried that ​the war’s unpopularity could cost ⁠them control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.

But Trump’s political considerations also include satisfying Iran hawks within his Republican Party, who scuttled a prior effort, that any agreement closes Tehran’s path to developing a nuclear weapon.

The reaction of other Middle East powers will also be crucial.

Trump said on social media that the agreement had been approved by countries including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ⁠office said in ​a statement after the Israeli leader and Trump spoke that Israel was not a party to the memorandum of ​understanding with Iran.

Netanyahu expressed his appreciation for Trump’s commitment to securing a deal that includes removing enriched material, dismantling enrichment infrastructure, limiting missile output and ending support for regional proxies, according to the readout.

Tehran has been demanding an end to Israeli ​attacks in Lebanon, where fighting has continued in a parallel war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.

 Thomson Reuters