President Donald Trump announced on Monday that a preliminary agreement with Iran has been fully signed in digital form and that oil-laden vessels have begun moving out of the Strait of Hormuz, marking the first tangible step towards ending months of military confrontation in the Gulf. Speaking alongside President Emmanuel Macron in the French town of Évian-les-Bains ahead of the G7 summit, Trump said the waterway was already partially reopened and would be “completely open” by Friday, once mine-clearing operations are completed. The Pakistani prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, who acted as mediator, confirmed that both sides had agreed to an immediate and permanent cessation of all military operations, lending a multilateral imprimatur to the breakthrough.

The memorandum of understanding, due to be signed formally in Geneva on Friday, provides for the lifting of the US naval blockade on Iranian ports and the reopening of the strait without transit fees, according to Vice President J.D. Vance. Iran, Trump said, has committed never to pursue nuclear weapons, though he stressed that no sanctions relief would be granted until Tehran fulfils its obligations. The text of the accord will be published after the ceremony. Crucially, the deal is a framework: the most intractable disputes, including the future of Iran’s nuclear programme and the architecture of American sanctions, have been deferred to negotiations over the following sixty days. Contradictory signals emerged, however, as Iranian semi-official agencies alluded to the possibility of maritime fees, while Vance insisted that technical talks would resolve the question of a permanently free waterway.

Viewed from Washington, the accord is being cast as a historic geopolitical pivot, with Trump praising the “very smart and powerful” new Iranian leadership and expressing regret that he had been compelled to resume strikes for two nights before the deal was reached. From Paris, Macron renewed an offer of a Franco-British military mission to help secure the strait; Trump replied that he did not need “great help” but that a ship or two from allies would not be a bad idea. In the region, Israeli media reported a significant gap between Israel’s declared objectives and the terms of the agreement, hinting at unease in Jerusalem. Global shipping and energy traders, meanwhile, greeted the news with caution, waiting for detailed security guarantees before ordering tankers back through the narrow chokepoint.

The coming days will test whether the fragile consensus holds. Mine-clearance must be completed, and the formal signing in Switzerland will need to paper over the ambiguities surrounding fees and the sequencing of sanctions relief. The sixty-day negotiation window is ambitious, given the complexity of nuclear verification and the domestic political constraints on both sides. If the strait reopens fully and durably, energy markets could stabilise after weeks of disruption, but the path from a preliminary memorandum to a comprehensive settlement remains strewn with obstacles. For now, the movement of tankers through the southern corridor offers a tentative signal that diplomacy has, for the moment, supplanted escalation.