Trump Ends The Iran War He Started With Gold-Palace Signing At Versailles, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That America Might Reach Its 250th Year Of Independence From A King Without A President Conducting Foreign Policy From A Throne Room

The Filing

VERSAILLES, France. Touring the gilded state apartments of the palace built by France's most absolute monarchs alongside President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday evening signed a memorandum formally ending the war against Iran that his own airstrikes and naval blockade had helped wage, resolving a long-standing concern that the 250th anniversary of American independence from a king might arrive without a president conducting foreign policy from inside a throne room.

The roughly 800-word, 14-point document, signed shortly before a state dinner Macron hosted in the President's honor, expands the existing ceasefire, reopens the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic, and eases the sanctions Washington had tightened during the conflict. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stood a half step behind the President as he signed. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who was not in France, signed his copy separately after the United States transmitted a photograph of the agreement, with Iranian state media releasing an image of him holding the page aloft.

Officials confirmed that the settlement carried no signature from the United States Senate, which did not ratify it, and no vote from the Congress, which had neither declared the war it ended nor authorized the strikes that began it. The arrangement instead took effect by the President's hand alone, in a room where the kings of France once received foreign ambassadors, on a continent the United States had spent the spring tariffing.

"Nobody thought this was possible, nobody, and we did it in the most beautiful place, the most beautiful palace anywhere in the world," Trump told reporters, calling the setting "very legendary, very royal." Aides noted approvingly that the President had ended a Middle Eastern war in the same halls where Louis XIV once governed a nation by personal decree, an approach the President was said to find efficient.

A senior administration official described the venue as incidental and the achievement as historic, noting that the United States had agreed to help assemble a reconstruction fund of up to 300 billion dollars to rebuild the country it had recently been bombing. "The President sees a war, he ends the war, and he does it with class," the official said. "Most people don't get to do that in a palace. He does."

At press time, the President had requested a private tour of the Hall of Mirrors, where the treaty ending a previous world war was signed, to ask whether the room could be made available.

Who Benefits

§Donald J. Trump, who banked credit for ending a war his own strikes and blockade had helped start and secured a coronation-grade image in the palace of France's absolute monarchs.
§The administration's dealmaker and strongman branding, which recast the personal, Congress-free conduct of war and peace as decisive leadership.
§The government of Iran, which won a ceasefire, the reopening of its oil exports, sanctions relief, a reconstruction fund of up to 300 billion dollars, and a co-equal signing that legitimized the regime.
§President Emmanuel Macron and the French government, handed the marquee diplomatic backdrop and a state dinner staged as the closing act of the G7.
§Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the State Department, positioned at the center of the signing and the diplomacy meant to follow.
§Gulf states and the regional partners expected to assemble the reconstruction fund.
§Oil and gas producers, commodity traders, shippers, and insurers, who profited from the wartime price spike and now from the relief that follows the Strait's reopening.
§Defense contractors and missile makers, who supplied months of strikes and naval operations.
§Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government, whose campaign against Iran the United States had joined.
§The expansive theory of unilateral presidential war power, under which a president may open a war, close it, and sign the settlement personally.
§Future presidents, who inherit the precedent that a war may be waged and ended without a congressional vote and memorialized as a private ceremony in a foreign palace.

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