President Trump finally signed a deal with Iran. Negotiations on the “final” deal now begin.

“This hasn’t been easy.”

That was the verdict of President Donald Trump, who finally signed the deal that ended the Iran war and reopened the Strait of Hormuz.

World powers will be hoping the 14-point agreement will bring some relief to the international economy, which is still suffering from the knock-on effects of Iran’s curbs on vital waterways.

But the conclusion of a long and tense period of negotiations only heralds the arrival of another round of negotiations. Details of a “final” US-Iran deal are likely to be even more difficult and still need to be hammered out during 60 days of negotiations between Washington and Tehran, which begin in the Swiss Alps on Friday.

Although Iran claims the interim agreement is a victory, critics and many independent experts say the terms are highly favorable to Iran. Even President Trump appeared to acknowledge that he signed the deal to prevent an “economic catastrophe” and the world from “plunging into recession,” calling it “very strong.”

Speaking at the Group of Seven summit in France, President Trump acknowledged before putting pen to paper on Wednesday that his deal had failed to achieve some of its original war goals, including halting Iran’s ballistic missile program. He signed the agreement at Versailles in 1918 that sealed Germany’s surrender to end World War I.

President Trump and his allies disparaged and ultimately abandoned President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal, in part because it failed to address Iran’s missile arsenal. But President Trump appeared to defend the Iranian government’s right to possess such weapons after the issue was left out of the deal.

President Trump told reporters in France that if other countries have ballistic missiles, “it’s a little bit unfair that Iran doesn’t have ballistic missiles.” “Even if Saudi Arabia and Qatar all had some amount, I think we would be OK relatively speaking.”

The remarks were quoted positively by Tehran’s state news agency, where the deal is largely framed as a victory for Iranian negotiators.

Parliament speaker Mohammad Berger Ghalibaf said the deal showed how Iran had “failed to let America and Israel achieve” the “goals set at the beginning of the war,” according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Meanwhile, President Massoud Pezeshkian called the document “a strong message from Iran.”

Vice President J.D. Vance said at a White House briefing on Thursday: “While the Iranians have not given up their right to self-defense, we do not expect that as part of a final agreement they will be able to produce the type of missiles that could broadly threaten the entire world.” “You cannot say that no country, whether Israel or Iran, is not allowed to exercise the right of self-defense.”

The White House has not officially released the agreement, but said it was distributed by senior U.S. officials to news outlets including NBC News, and that its publication had been temporarily delayed at Iran’s request.

While President Obama’s 18-page deal in 2015 focused solely on Iran’s nuclear program, President Trump’s deal, despite being only two pages, touches on many other topics, from shipping to unfreezing Iranian assets to controversial funding to rebuild the Islamic Republic.

Although Israel is not a direct party to the agreement, the document also specifies that fighting must cease in Lebanon, where Israel continues to carry out air and ground attacks targeting the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah. Ceasefire agreements between Israel and the Lebanese government have repeatedly failed in recent months.

According to the memorandum, Iran reaffirmed its commitment not to develop nuclear weapons (which it fulfilled under the 2015 Obama agreement) and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. This was the case even before the US and Israel went to war on February 28th. Free navigation for ships is guaranteed only during a 60-day consultation period, and further negotiations between Oman and the Gulf states on future arrangements are expected, but there are no guarantees as to what will happen after that.

The deal also commits to the “disposal” and dilution of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile under a “mutually agreed” mechanism. President Trump said Wednesday that it is “not important” whether this happens immediately because he is monitoring the scene. “If I get the chance, I’ll definitely do it,” he said.

Meanwhile, the United States pledged to “lift sanctions of all kinds,” including on exports of oil, which has long been the lifeblood of Iran’s economy. The United States has said it will work with regional partners to establish a $300 billion redevelopment fund for Iran, which was heavily bombed during the conflict, but President Trump and senior officials denied that the United States would contribute the money itself.

Many details remain vague, perhaps intentionally, and thorny issues are deferred to a “final” agreement.

Dina Esfandiary, head of Middle East geoeconomics at Bloomberg Economics, Bloomberg’s in-house research arm, said the “major issues, the ones where both the U.S. and Iran have clear concessions,” have been “postponed to the 60-day negotiation deadline.”

“Essentially, what this does is effectively extend the ceasefire that’s already in place to give negotiators room to talk over the next 60 days,” Esfandiari said.

“Iran is not giving much, but it is getting very much in return,” Esfandiari added.

Since the US has already agreed to lift all sanctions, it is less clear what will be offered in further negotiations. Mr. Vance, who said he would lead the negotiating team, expressed hope that a final deal would “ensure” that the Strait of Hormuz “will never be used as a chokepoint for the global economy,” that Iran will stop “financing regional instability” and that it will not seek to rebuild its nuclear weapons program, but did not elaborate on what the United States would propose to achieve those goals. “We hold all the cards,” he said.

Vance said the deal includes some undocumented “gentlemen’s agreements” with Iran, but did not elaborate. He also expressed hope that the deal could encourage Iran to seek a “transformative relationship with the Middle East,” adding: “If Iran doesn’t do that, then we’re not going to have any skin on our backs anyway.”

Some Republican lawmakers have sharply criticized the agreement.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), who is retiring after losing a primary battle with a pro-Trump opponent, called the deal “the worst foreign policy failure in decades,” and told the X-Post, “Iran’s nuclear ambitions will go unchecked, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz is effective, and they will no doubt use that in the future. Now, Iran will build a whole new infrastructure based on this deal.”

“It’s not a good idea to give billions of dollars to a theocratic lunatic who wants to kill us,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told The Hill on Wednesday.

“This Iran deal is just a huge setback for President Trump,” said Brett Bruen, a former diplomat who served in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. “I don’t know if he ever regained his strength on the world stage after such a huge setback.”

The White House did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on criticism of the deal.