Iran-US war latest: Trump and Iranian leader sign peace deal as Tehran vows to charge Strait of Hormuz fees

Donald Trump suggested he would blame vice president JD Vance if the Iran peace deal failed.

Asked about the possibility of blaming Vance if the deal fails, Trump replied: “I like that idea, sure.”

“This way, if it works out, I’m going to take the credit. If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD,” the president continued.

“You better be careful, JD,” he said.

Vance has become a leading administration voice promoting the initial agreement to end the war in Iran, even as Trump has occasionally contradicted facets of the agreement that Vance has announced publicly.

If you’d like to know how Donald Trump’s closing speech at the G7 went, it’s probably best to start at the part where he asked Scott Bessent whether the stock market was smarter than his Treasury secretary.

“No, sir,” Bessent dutifully replied. He was disagreeing with a notion Trump had just posited, but it was clear from his tone of voice that he didn’t mean to disagree.

He was simply trying to make real-time sense of what his boss had just said, which happened to be the semi-coherent and utterly baffling: “The stock market is more brilliant than anybody there is, including people on this stage, apart from me. What do you think, Scott, is the stock market more brilliant than you?”

Yes, sir? No, sir? What, sir? It was clear at that point, just a couple of minutes in, that nobody — including his own team, or perhaps especially his own team — had any idea what Trump was talking about.

Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif deleted a post on the US-Iran deal and later reposted it without a reference to the Friday signing ceremony.

Sharif had written on X that there would still be a formal signing ceremony on Friday, after both sides had already signed a memorandum of agreement.

Sharif briefly removed the post a short time later, however. Then, he reposted most of the same text but removed a reference to Friday’s ceremony.

That could cast doubt on whether the ceremony will happen.

Oil prices fell in early trading this morning after the US and Iran signed an interim agreement that would end the Iran ​war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and waive US sanctions on ‌Tehran’s oil, resolving the largest energy supply disruption in history.

Brent crude futures were down 89 cents, or 1.12 per cent, at $78.66 a barrel, and US West Texas Intermediate ​fell 98 cents, or 1.28 per cent, to $75.81 a barrel.

US president Donald Trump has threatened that he could resume attacks and kill Iranian officials if they failed to honour their commitments after both nations signed the peace deal on Wednesday.

“We’re going to ⁠bomb the hell out of them if they violate the agreement,” Trump said of Iran at a press conference.

“I don’t want them to. I want them to honour the agreement.”

He also called Iranians “smart people” as US and Iranian negotiators work on a permanent truce over the coming 60 days, which Trump said he hoped would usher in peace in the Middle East and lower oil prices.

Australians would be able to enjoy foreign holidays at cheaper rates after the government significantly relaxed its travel warnings for several Middle Eastern countries.

The government lifted its blanket travel bans for Gulf nations on Tuesday after US president Donald Trump announced a peace deal with Iran.

The deal is expected to be formally signed in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday.

Foreign minister Penny Wong confirmed that the “do not travel” advisory had been lowered for the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Israel, and Kuwait.

Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that sanctions on Iran would be removed once “they behave.”

“As far as sanctions are concerned, at some point, you know, we have sanctions which will never let them rebuild. They would have no money, they would be in poverty, the 91 million people would starve, so something will happen as soon as they behave. When they behave, we’re going to let that go. We’re going to have to. I put sanctions on a lot of people, and then I let them go,” Trump told reporters.

He also suggested that frozen funds could be returned.

“We have taken their money, it’s not our money, it’s their money, and we froze it. At a certain point in time I guess we’re going to have to give it back,” Trump said. “If we didn’t give it back, nobody would ever invest in the dollar again.”

On Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump ceremonially signed the memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the Iran war.

The Republican inked the document during a visit to France’s Versailles palace after the G7 summit.

French President Emmanuel Macron and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio looked on with approval as the Republican used a heavy ink pen to seal the deal.

“It’s signed, yeah,” Trump told reporters as he left dinner with Macron. “I signed it in Versailles.”

You can watch video of the historic moment here, via the White House.