By Halie Soifer in Washington, D.C.
This week, President Trump celebrated his 80th birthday with a cage fight and capitulation. Just as his televised wrestling match on the White House Lawn debased the Office of the President, so too did his caving to the Iranian regime. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) that Trump reached after four months of war with Iran appears to be more of an act of desperation than diplomacy. It demonstrated Trump’s weakness and abandonment of Israel despite his assertions that there are “no limits” to his power, he’s “the boss,” and Israel “will do as I say.”
The 14-point MOU is a windfall for Iran, offering Iran sanctions relief, unfreezing of assets, and financial support in exchange for a 60-day commitment to return to the pre-war status quo by reopening the Strait of Hormuz with no fees. While reopening the world’s energy chokepoint will help stabilize oil prices, it’s a temporary commitment on the part of Iran, which reaps extensive financial benefits from the deal up front. The United States, meanwhile, is left hoping for a better and more extensive agreement within a two-month negotiating period, which is unlikely to be achieved now that Trump has relinquished nearly all military and economic leverage over Iran.
It’s hard to read Trump’s “deal” as anything other than an act of desperation given that the primary American and Israeli concerns regarding Iran – its hardline regime, nuclear program, ballistic missile program, and support of terrorist proxies – are left unaddressed. Trump failed to secure any meaningful commitment from Iran on its nuclear program, allegedly the primary impetus for the war, other than “reaffirming” Iran’s existing commitment not to seek a nuclear weapon. This is a commitment that Iran already made in the preamble of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Trump walked away from in 2018. In other words, this Iranian commitment is nothing new, just copied and pasted words on a 1.5-page DocuSign.
The vague “hope and a wish” nature of the MOU raises more questions than answers, including the fate of Iran’s nuclear facilities, its enriched uranium, the future of its enrichment program, and whether Iran will agree to nuclear inspections. Ideally, these matters will be dealt with in follow-up negotiations, but Iran is left with little incentive to make any concessions because it receives extensive financial benefits from this MOU, including a commitment to lift all U.S. sanctions, unfreeze approximately $24 billion in Iranian funds, and provide “at least” $300 billion for the “economic reconstruction and economic development” of Iran.
These funds alone represent a huge win for Iran. They are rightfully the cause of deep concern from Democrats and Republicans willing to speak out, as well as Israel, which continues to fight Iran via Hezbollah in Lebanon. Just 12 days ago, Israel was targeted by Iranian missiles, and this agreement fails to address Iran’s ballistic missile program, which has been left largely intact. The Washington Post reported last month that Iran has retained about 75 percent of its prewar inventories of mobile launchers and about 70 percent of its prewar stockpiles of missiles, which have repeatedly been used to target U.S. interests and allies in the region, including Israel.
Yesterday, Trump had the audacity to defend Iran’s ballistic missile program and assert Iran’s alleged right to have access to such weapons, thousands of which have been launched at Israel in the past two years. Perhaps in his most telling statement of the week – certainly his least presidential – Trump asserted that it’s “unfair” to ask Iran to give up its missiles if other countries have them, sounding more like a children’s sports referee than America’s Commander-in-Chief.
Trump also spoke about Israel with anger and derision, building on his assertion earlier this month that he “calls all the shots” and that Israel “won’t have any choice” but to accept his deal with Iran. Once again, this week, Trump claimed that Israel wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for him. Speaking at the G7 Summit, Trump said: “Without me, there would be no Israel, because no other president was willing to do what I did…Israel would have been blown up a long time ago, had I not gotten involved.”
This isn’t the first time that – as I told The Associated Press – Donald Trump has made Israel’s mere existence contingent on his actions. At the 2024 presidential debate, he asserted that if he didn’t win the election, Israel would cease to exist “within two years,” effectively positioning Israel’s survival as entirely dependent on him. It takes a special degree of malignant narcissism and arrogance for Donald Trump to believe that Israel’s future is riding entirely on his actions, especially when his actions in the past week do not align with Israel’s vital security interests.
It appears that Israelis themselves are waking up to the fact that Trump is, at best, a fair-weather friend. His favorability rating in Israel has dropped by 20 points in the past three weeks, from 58% to 38%, according to a recent Israel Hayom/Kanter poll released after Trump berated Prime Minister Netanyahu as “f–king crazy” and later said he has “no f–king judgment.” Yesterday, Vice President Vance also lashed out against Israelis criticizing the Iran deal, asserting that Trump is Israel’s only ally in the world and reminding Israel “that two-thirds of the weapons that ‘protected your homeland’ were American-made and paid for by U.S. tax dollars.” At a time when the future of U.S. military aid to Israel remains uncertain, how could this be seen as anything other than a threat?
For far too long, too many people in Israel and the American Jewish community have given Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt, believing that he was truly committed to Israel’s security and future. This week has laid bare many things about Trump’s failed leadership, including the fact that he’s willing to throw Israel under the bus to get an agreement that will serve his near-term interests. We want to see this war come to an end, but not by strengthening Iran through an American surrender. In this case, it appears Trump was so desperate to reach an agreement that he gave away the store to Iran without fully considering the potential security implications for Israel and the United States.
In the prescient words of Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton in April 2024, “Trump’s support for Israel in the first term is not guaranteed in the second term, because Trump’s positions are made on the basis of what’s good for Donald Trump, not on some coherent theory of national security.” This has never been clearer than it is today because of this very bad deal with Iran.
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Halie Soifer is the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.