G7 Leaders Praise Trump For Historic Iran Peace Deal None Of Them Have Been Allowed To Read, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That World Leaders Were Still Endorsing Only Agreements They Had Seen

The Filing

ÉVIAN-LES-BAINS, France. The leaders of the world's seven leading industrial democracies concluded three days of meetings Wednesday by issuing a joint statement praising President Donald J. Trump for a historic agreement to end the war with Iran, an agreement whose actual text none of them have been permitted to read.

The statement, which the United States signed, hailed the deal as a decisive step toward peace and credited the President personally with reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the channel through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil passes. Officials confirmed that the document being celebrated does not yet exist in any form available for inspection, and that the President had promised to release its contents in a couple of days. The agreement is expected to be formally signed later in the week at a resort in Switzerland, at which point allied governments may learn what it was they endorsed.

"The deal is fantastic, maybe the best deal ever made, and people are going to be very happy when they see it," the President told reporters, declining to say when that would be. A source within the administration described the secrecy as a feature rather than an oversight, explaining that releasing a peace agreement before anyone could object to its terms had streamlined the diplomatic process considerably.

For a bloc that has twice watched the President refuse to sign its communiqués, and once watched him leave a summit early, the spectacle of six governments competing to commend a document they had not seen was widely regarded as progress. Rather than risk a disagreement, the leaders spent the week lowering the bar to a height the President could clear, an arrangement aides characterized as a triumph of consensus. The same statement pledged to increase pressure on Russia over its continuing invasion of Ukraine, a war the United States has largely stopped helping to fund.

The Iran agreement caps a sequence in which the President ordered strikes on Iran, imposed a naval blockade that closed the Strait of Hormuz, presided over a spike in global oil prices, and then lifted the blockade he had imposed, an achievement his administration has marketed as unprecedented savings for the American consumer. Officials noted that the precise obligations the United States has now taken on, including any to the government of Iran, would become clear to Congress and the public at a date to be determined.

At press time, allied leaders were applauding warmly for a peace they could not describe, having concluded that the surest way to avoid a fight with the President was to ratify whatever he had not yet written down.

Who Benefits

§Donald J. Trump, collects a unanimous endorsement from the world's democracies for a peace deal he has not released, banking the credit while retaining sole control over the terms.
§The administration's dealmaker and strongman branding, which converts six allied governments lowering their own expectations into proof of American indispensability.
§The government of Iran, granted a co-equal signing ceremony and a reprieve whose obligations remain hidden from Congress and the American public.
§Vladimir Putin and the Russian government, the subject of a sanctions pledge issued by a bloc whose largest member has largely stopped funding the defense of the country Russia invaded.
§U.S. oil and gas producers, who booked elevated prices during the blockade the deal now lifts.
§Commodity traders, shippers, and insurers, who profited from the chokepoint crisis and now from its relief.
§The Swiss venue selected for the formal signing, handed a marquee diplomatic event.
§Future presidents, who inherit the precedent that allied governments may be asked to endorse agreements they have never read.

Sourced to the public record · presented without editorial embellishment