Turns out, President Donald Trump was right. There really was a peace deal with Iran that was on the table that was being finalized.
Both the U.S. and Iran have announced the deal, brokered by Pakistan, and, just as the President predicted, oil prices have crashed as the President has announced the U.S. naval blockade of Iran to be at an end and the Strait of Hormuz is reopened.
As of this writing, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil has plummeted from over $114 a barrel in early April down to a little above $76 a barrel as of this writing — almost a 35 percent drop — with markets betting that the agreement will stick.
As for the peace deal, it appears to mirror the terms of the initial ceasefire, which is now being extended for another 60 days while the terms of extracting the surviving nuclear materials — what the President calls the nuclear dust — from Iran’s nuclear facilities are hammered out in ongoing negotiations, subject to verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
As for sanctions relief or investment by Gulf states in rebuilding Iran’s infrastructure, that appears contingent on removing the existing nuclear stockpile.
The key concession, per President Trump on Truth Social on June 15 is Iran will never have a nuclear weapon: “Iran has agreed to never have a Nuclear Weapon!”
Even with all that great news, a curious analysis of the peace deal from the Associated Press’ Munir Ahmed and Lee Keath suggested nothing had changed because of the war: “That would leave the adversaries more or less where they were 3 1/2 months ago — before Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28 launched their war on Iran…”
Only, there were no face-to-face negotiations between the U.S. and Iran before the war. The two sides had not spoken since the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the hostage crisis at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. But because of the war, diplomatic relations have been restored.
Also, prior to the war, there also was no commitment by Iran to abandon its nuclear stockpiles, now stuck under the mountains thanks to the June 2025’s Operation Midnight Hammer, that now must be extracted. It was not even on the table, but now, the details over the materials’ extraction are being dealt with.
And, prior to the war, there was no pathway for the U.S. to even consider removing the sanctions, but with the nuclear question apparently being settled, it stands out as a real, albeit conditions-based possibility.
To review, a lot has changed after the war: the U.S. and Iran are finally talking after 47 years, there may be a framework for defending the freedom of the seas in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman, the removal of Iran’s nuclear materials are a matter of time and it appears once they have been removed then so might sanctions.
Clearly not every issue is being settled, including the Israel-Lebanon war or Iran’s support of terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas.
Perhaps the President’s political opponents want to say that the war didn’t change anything or that it somehow made things worse, but with both the U.S. and Iran agreeing and announcing the deal — they cannot say there wasn’t a deal that was being finalized. Trump was right.
And the oil markets are telling a different story. The facts have clearly changed on the ground, and with money on the line, investors seem to be learning to DBAT: Don’t Bet Against Trump.
Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
