US-Iran deal on the brink as Middle East’s war of wars resists resolution

The deal that isn’t done yet

American and Iranian negotiators reached a tentative agreement Thursday on a 60-day memorandum of understanding — a formal pause in fighting while longer-term nuclear talks commence. The outline, confirmed to multiple outlets by US officials speaking anonymously, would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil normally flows, and lift the American naval blockade of Iranian ports in exchange for Iran removing mines within 30 days [1,6,18,28]. Iran would also receive access to up to $12 billion in frozen assets and sanction waivers to resume selling oil [17].

Trump has not approved the deal. According to Axios, he was briefed but told mediators he wanted “a couple of days to think about it” [32,33]. His hesitation is partly political: Republican hawks in the Senate are calling any agreement a capitulation, and some compare the emerging terms unfavourably to the 2015 nuclear deal — the JCPOA, a detailed agreement on uranium enrichment limits that Trump himself cancelled in 2018 — which Trump had promised to surpass [32]. David Schenker, a former assistant secretary of state, called the emerging framework “Obama minus” [32].

While the deal sat unsigned, both sides kept fighting. The US military struck what it described as an Iranian drone operation near Bandar Abbas, a port city on Iran’s southern coast. Iran then targeted a US air base in Kuwait, which activated air defences to intercept incoming missiles and drones [19,74]. Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs and escalated operations in Lebanon, including strikes the US reportedly urged Israel to stop near Lebanon’s Qaraoun Dam, a reservoir that supplies about 15% of Lebanon’s electricity [38,73]. Pakistan’s foreign minister was flying to Washington on Friday to accelerate the process [17].

What remains genuinely unclear: whether Trump’s hesitation is a negotiating posture to extract more from Tehran, or whether domestic pressure from hardliners could sink the deal entirely. Iran’s own ultra-hardliners have also attacked the negotiators publicly [35 sidebar]. The IDF, for its part, is preparing for renewed full-scale war with Iran with no advance warning, having been cut out of the US-Iran talks entirely [37].

Netanyahu moves the line in Gaza — again

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly announced he had ordered the Israeli military to seize 70% of the Gaza Strip. Israel already controls an estimated 60–64% of the territory, itself more than the 53% allotted under the October 2025 US-brokered ceasefire [3,5,7]. “We were at fifty, we moved to sixty,” Netanyahu said at a conference in a West Bank settlement. “My directive is to move to… seventy. Let’s start with that.” [7]

The October ceasefire — which secured the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas — was meant to freeze territorial lines while disarmament and governance talks proceeded. Instead, Israel has continued striking inside Gaza; the Gaza Health Ministry says more than 900 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire began, and 16 were killed in just the past two days [34]. Israeli-backed militias are now operating in northern Gaza with heavy military drones, possibly supplied by Israel [3].

Hamas has refused to disarm, which Israel cites as justification for the creeping advance. The ceasefire’s nominal framework — Trump’s “Board of Peace” plan, which explicitly said no one would be forced to leave Gaza — is now under open strain. A visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations said Netanyahu was effectively tearing up the Trump framework [5].

The peacekeeping force meant to stabilise Gaza after the war has stalled completely. Of five countries that pledged troops — Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, and Albania — none has deployed any meaningful contingent three months after the force was announced [9,16]. Indonesia, which promised 8,000 soldiers and was set to send 1,000 in April, suspended its commitment after the US-Israel attack on Iran in February made open cooperation with Washington politically toxic at home. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country. Its defence minister told parliament: “New dynamics have emerged. Because the intensity of the conflict between US and Iranian forces remains very high, the Board of Peace has tended to be left behind.” [16]

The price of Hormuz — hitting wallets from Washington to Harare

The Iran war’s principal weapon against the outside world is the Strait of Hormuz, and the economic pain is now measurable in almost every country. US inflation, as measured by the PCE price index — the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of how much prices are rising across the economy — jumped to 3.8% in April, the highest rate since May 2023 [49,72]. Gasoline prices are up more than 50% since the war began in late February. Overall US GDP growth was revised down to 1.6% annualised for the first quarter [72].

The Fed is now trapped: it wants to cut interest rates to support a slowing economy, but inflation driven by an external energy shock is not something interest-rate policy can fix [58]. Markets expect rates to stay in the 3.50–3.75% range well into next year.

The ripple runs globally. European jet fuel prices hit a record above $200 a barrel in April, with tankers now sailing from Louisiana to Melbourne — a route not seen since 2017 — because Hormuz flows of around 400,000 barrels per day of jet fuel have been cut off [78]. Jet fuel inventory in Europe’s main storage hub at Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp is at its lowest since March. Analysts warn that if the closure persists into August and September, real shortages could emerge [78].

Ukraine is feeling it too. US Representative Jim Himes, a senior intelligence committee Democrat, said weapon stocks being used in the Gulf “need to be provided to Ukraine” [39]. A new analysis found the US will need years to replenish advanced weapons consumed in the Iran war [9 sidebar].

Ukraine: jets from Sweden, €90 billion from Brussels

Ukraine secured two concrete wins Thursday. Sweden announced it will donate 16 Gripen fighter jets — a Swedish-built, multirole warplane — to Ukraine by early 2027 and signed a longer-term framework for Ukraine to purchase up to 150 of a newer model [39,76]. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited a Swedish airbase north of Stockholm for the announcement. The jets can carry Meteor air-to-air missiles, a European-made weapon with a longer range than most alternatives.

Ukraine’s parliament also ratified a €90 billion EU loan, enabling the first disbursement of €3.2 billion in June [52]. The funds will be channelled into defence, energy resilience, and closing the budget gap. With the EU money, Ukraine’s total defence spending this year is projected to hit roughly $100 billion — up from $61 billion last year, and up from a previously planned $64 billion [52]. The money is tied to anti-corruption reforms; the IMF is currently in Kyiv reviewing a separate $8.1 billion lending programme.

The EU also announced it plans to begin formal membership negotiations with Ukraine in June [45].

Russia brushed off a sharp UN rebuke for its Oreshnik ballistic missile strike on Kyiv last Sunday. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said “Russia is on the back foot, militarily, economically, but also diplomatically” and that EU ministers are aligned behind Ukraine for any eventual peace talks [39].

Europe tightens on China, splits on tactics

EU commissioners will meet Friday for an internal debate that may define European trade policy for years. The concern driving it: Chinese goods are flooding European markets at prices sometimes 40% below local production, a pattern officials are calling “China Shock 2.0” — a reference to the devastation that hit US manufacturing towns after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001 [31,90]. The EU’s six largest economies — Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands — reached a deal Thursday on a broader financial integration package, though the China question remained unsettled [42].

A French-led initiative to impose sweeping new trade defences attracted most commissioners but lost Spain. Madrid quietly withdrew support it appeared to have given a few days earlier, with the trade minister calling instead for “engagement” [62]. China’s share of EU imports in some categories has made European factories increasingly reliant on Chinese components — a vulnerability that rarely makes headlines but worries industrial policymakers deeply [31].

EU regulators also formally opened a probe into Chinese state subsidies behind e-commerce giant JD.com’s acquisition of German electronics retailer Ceconomy [59]. And the EU fined Temu, a Chinese-owned online platform, €200 million — roughly €7 per EU citizen — for allowing dangerous baby toys and faulty chargers to be sold through its site, the second such fine ever issued under the EU’s Digital Services Act [79].

Ebola at the border, heat records on the way

Uganda closed its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo this week after suspected cases of a rare strain of Ebola — a hemorrhagic fever virus with no approved treatment for this variant — began spreading in Congo’s eastern Bunia region [1,26,29]. Aid supplies reached Bunia on Thursday as the WHO’s director-general travelled to Kinshasa. The border closure is a containment measure; the outbreak has not yet been confirmed to have crossed into Uganda.

The UN’s World Meteorological Organization released a report Thursday warning that there is an 86% chance at least one year between 2026 and 2030 will surpass 2024 as the hottest year on record [10,23,51]. A 75% chance exists that the five-year average temperature will exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels — the threshold scientists say risks cascading damage to agriculture, water supply, and human health. A new El Niño weather pattern, which causes additional warming by changing Pacific wind patterns, is expected by the end of this year and could push 2027 to record-breaking temperatures. Europe is already in the grip of a record May heatwave, with UN climate chief Simon Stiell calling it “a brutal reminder of the spiralling impacts of the climate crisis.” [23]

The story nobody’s covering

Malaria deaths in Zimbabwe have more than doubled this year, and the numbers are accelerating fast. Between January and April 2026, 174 people died from malaria — compared with 85 in the same period last year and 34 in 2024. Cases have nearly tripled, from 36,000 last year to 65,399 this year [66]. The driver is specific: the Trump administration’s aid cuts in early 2025 dismantled two US-funded programmes — ZENTO and ZAPIM II — that Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health relied upon for diagnostics, bed nets, and research. USAID had disbursed $270 million for health and agriculture programmes in Zimbabwe in 2024 alone. The remaining health infrastructure is too thin to absorb the collapse. Village health workers in rural Mutare are running out of diagnostic kits. People are dying before they reach treatment. This is a preventable disease with a cheap cure, being allowed to kill at scale because a funding line was cut. The Iran war and Gaza dominate coverage; Zimbabwe’s malaria surge does not.