US Revokes Iran's Oil License, Resumes Strikes as Trump's Hormuz Deal Unravels
The fragile understanding that was supposed to keep the Strait of Hormuz open collapsed further this week. On Tuesday, the US Treasury revoked the general license that had allowed Iran to sell its oil on international markets, just over two weeks after Washington issued the waiver as the centerpiece concession of last month’s interim memorandum of understanding with Tehran. The reversal followed a wave of attacks on tankers in the strait, including strikes on a Qatari LNG carrier and a Saudi-flagged crude supertanker.
A US official framed the move in blunt terms: the arrangement with Iran was always “entirely performance-based,” and Tehran’s actions in the strait were “wholly unacceptable.” Hours later, US Central Command confirmed it had launched a fresh round of strikes against Iranian targets, marking the second time in under two weeks that Washington has resorted to force to keep the shipping lane open rather than relying on the diplomatic framework signed just three weeks earlier at Versailles.
The deal was always thinner than advertised. The June 17 memorandum gave Iran 60 days to negotiate a final settlement while promising, in return, that Tehran would make its “best efforts” toward toll-free passage through Hormuz. That language was a tell from the start: Iranian officials continued talking about “service fees” for ships even after signing, and the interim ceasefire has now been punctuated by at least two separate rounds of US strikes triggered by tanker attacks, on June 27 and again this week. A deal that requires repeated bombing campaigns to enforce its own terms is not functioning as a deal.
Israel’s frustration is not new, and this won’t ease it. Israel fought the February war alongside the US but was kept outside the Pakistan-mediated talks that produced the MOU, and Israeli officials, from coalition members to opposition figures, criticized the framework when it was signed. Recent polling has captured the mood: only a small minority of Israelis believe Trump is prioritizing Israel’s security, and a narrow plurality of Americans hold a positive view of the president’s Middle East approach at all. Watching Washington negotiate a sanctions waiver for the regime that killed Khamenei’s successor’s predecessor in a war Israel bled for, only to see that waiver revoked days after tankers start burning again, reinforces a view already held in Jerusalem: that the interim deal was a US-Iran arrangement Israel was expected to live with, not one it shaped.
What comes next is genuinely uncertain. Iran’s foreign minister has said negotiations toward a final agreement will not resume “if threats continue,” while Trump has told reporters the US will “either make a deal or finish the job.” Oil markets are already pricing in the risk: Brent crude jumped more than 5% from the prior day’s settlement on the news. Whether this is a temporary escalation inside a still-alive ceasefire framework, or the moment the 60-day clock effectively resets to zero, will depend on whether Iran can resist testing Hormuz again in the coming days.