Trump-Iran agreement gives Iran a free pass on nuclear treaty violations pending final deal

While Iran affirms that it won’t develop nuclear weapons in the agreement, curbing the actual process of making those weapons—stockpiling and enriching uranium—is left to be finalized later. Crucially, the memo states that in the meantime, Iran will “maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program.”

“What the negotiators are trying to capture is that Iran takes no further advances with its nuclear program, but they should have considered that the status quo is pretty poor,” Andrea Stricker, a national security expert specializing in nuclear weapons, told Fortune. “If I were negotiating, I would have insisted that restoration of monitoring and access would have to be something that Iran had to do in the MOU because it’s so important.”

Iran hasn’t allowed the UN watchdog responsible for monitoring nuclear materials—the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—access to its nuclear facilities since its 12-day war with the U.S. and Israel last June, meaning it hasn’t been able to verify the size of Iran’s uranium stockpile for a year now. 

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told reporters on Thursday that moving Iran further away from building a nuclear weapon isn’t fully up to him but “depends on the political will of both sides.”

“What is needed will depend on the final technical agreement that we will have,” Grossi said about the memo in the press briefing video. “I understand your curiosity, but it’s not prudent to jump ahead of facts.”

The IAEA Board of Governors has formally found Iran in non-compliance with its nuclear non-proliferation safeguards obligations twice: in 2005 over past concealment and breaches, and in 2025 over failure to cooperate on undeclared nuclear material and activities since 2019. The memo commits the U.S. to terminating IAEA Board resolutions, but only as part of a final deal to be negotiated and not one with immediate action.

“It’s essentially saying they will close the case on the outstanding issues and pass no further IAEA resolutions,” Stricker told Fortune. “Iran just basically put its wish list into this MOU.”

The IAEA didn’t respond to Fortune’s multiple requests for comment. 

Deal “not worth much” without stricter uranium monitoring

On reducing nuclear weapons development risk, the memo of understanding states that Iran will, at minimum, be downblending uranium on site under IAEA supervision. Downblending would turn Iran’s reported  440.9kg of uranium enriched to 60%—the weapons-grade threshold is 90% or more—to a low-enriched or even natural uranium state. But the risk in that is it’s reversible, Stricker said. 

“It introduces an unnecessary intermediary step if your goal is to actually export or destroy the material,” Stricker said. “Why would you want to put this intermediary step there unless they’re planning to allow Iran to keep the stockpile?”

The first Trump administration withdrew from the last nuclear deal the U.S. had with Iran finalized under Obama in 2015, which was made before Iran had uranium that was as close to the 90% nuclear weapon threshold. 

Trump now has 60 days to finalize an agreement with Iran, extendable with mutual consent, and Stricker hopes that the deal will include stricter measures—like requiring Iran to disclose all its nuclear materials—that are not present in the memo.

“I think if that is not included in a final deal, then it really won’t be worth much,” Stricker said.