President Donald Trump declared the U.S.-Iran ceasefire “over” at a NATO summit press conference a few days ago. American warplanes have since struck Iran three times. Iran’s navy declared the Strait of Hormuz closed. And yet no government that signed, witnessed, or agreed to host the June 17 Memorandum of Understanding has formally withdrawn from it.
The document is being breached, redefined, and kept alive by every institutional actor involved in its creation.
The legal picture makes that contradiction explicit. In a letter to Congress dated July 10 and obtained by Politico, Trump formally notified lawmakers that the nation is again at war with Iran, stating that the strikes beginning July 7 represent “military action consistent with my responsibility to protect Americans and United States’ interests both at home and abroad.” The notification gives the administration a fresh 60-day clock to use military force in the region without congressional approval. The United States therefore has, simultaneously, a live peace framework under the MOU Trump signed last month and a new war notification filed on Capitol Hill, with no formal document terminating the MOU.
On June 17, Trump signed a 14-point Memorandum of Understanding with Iran at a formal dinner in Versailles, France, formally ending four months of military conflict. The agreement committed both sides to a permanent halt to military operations, obligated Iran to allow commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz at no charge for 60 days, and opened a 60-day negotiating window on Iran’s nuclear program and U.S. sanctions. In exchange, Washington agreed to lift its naval blockade and ensure that approximately $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets held in Qatar would be made accessible as negotiations progressed. Pakistan and Qatar served as co-mediators. Switzerland’s Bürgenstock resort was designated as the venue for talks on implementation.
Conservative radio host Mark Levin, who has expressed reservations about the deal, nonetheless made the institutional reality plain the day after it was signed. “If President Trump wants this MOU to go through as a final deal, it’s going to go through as a final deal,” Levin said on his show. “Nothing anybody says can actually stop it.” That observation now cuts both ways. The president has the power to make the deal survive. He also has the power to kill it formally. He has done neither.
Five Days That Didn’t Settle Anything
On July 8, at the NATO summit in Ankara, Trump was asked whether the MOU was still operative. “To me, I think it’s over,” he said. In the same breath, he added: “I’ll let our wonderful negotiators keep talking if they want.” No withdrawal letter was issued. CENTCOM’s press release that day, announcing strikes on approximately 80 targets in southern Iran, cited “freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz” as its legal basis. It made no mention of terminating the MOU.
July 9 brought a second strike package hitting roughly 90 targets, including a strategic rail bridge linking Iran to China and Russia. Iran retaliated with drone and missile strikes on U.S. facilities in Kuwait and Bahrain.
On July 10, Trump posted on Truth Social that the ceasefire was “OVER.” Hours later, Iran’s Foreign Ministry denied that it wanted a new round of talks. Yet there was no termination of the MOU, and the channel remained open.
Saturday, July 11, posed the sharpest test. The IRGC Navy struck a Cyprus-flagged container ship in the Strait and declared the waterway “closed until further notice,” and CENTCOM launched a third round of strikes. That same afternoon, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met his Omani counterpart in Muscat. Their joint readout explicitly cited Article 5 of the MOU as the governing framework for Hormuz shipping discussions. Iran’s navy closed the Strait, while its foreign minister cited the MOU.
July 13: A New Claim on the Strait
On Monday morning, Trump disclosed that the two sides had reached a previously undisclosed agreement that Iran subsequently broke. “We had a deal. What nobody knows, we had a deal. It was a done deal. And then they broke it,” he told Fox News. “They always break it. We’ve had 10 deals with these people.”
He then announced a fundamental redefinition of America’s role in the region. In a Truth Social post, Trump declared the Strait open “with or without Iran,” announced the reinstatement of what he called “the Iranian blockade” targeting Iranian vessels and Iran’s customers, and said the United States would demand a 20% charge on all cargo shipped through the Strait to cover the cost of U.S. protection. “The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,’” he wrote. CENTCOM simultaneously announced a fourth round of strikes, targeting air defense systems, coastal radar installations, missile and drone sites, and small boats across southern Iran.
The MilitarySpend.org ceasefire tracker has logged 37 violations and still classifies the MOU’s formal legal status as active. The Swiss Foreign Ministry has not declared the Bürgenstock process closed. Qatar is holding $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets that cannot be disbursed or returned without the MOU being either implemented or formally terminated.
A senior U.S. official told CNBC on July 10 that the MOU was “performance-based” and Iran’s actions represented “failed performance at an unacceptable level,” while confirming talks would continue. That is not the language of a terminated document. That is the language of a contract in dispute. Trump himself told Fox News this morning that the two sides held 11 hours of talks on Sunday, though it remained unclear whether the session was direct or through intermediaries.
A diplomat with knowledge of recent mediation efforts told Axios that “it’s clear both sides want to come back to the MOU.” Another round of negotiations is expected, possibly in Switzerland.
Whether a 20% Hormuz toll, a fourth round of strikes, and an Iranian threat to engulf the region in war leave room for that conversation is the question no tracker, no frozen asset, and no Swiss foreign ministry statement can answer today.
The ceasefire may be over. The document is not. But what replaces it is being written in real time.
