President Donald Trump seems committed to negotiating a deal with Iran. At the start of the year, he wanted to negotiate a settlement. Iran wouldn’t oblige, so he attacked. But it seems this was just a plan to convince Iran to make a deal. Then on June 14, Trump entered a memorandum of understanding with Iran. If this deal holds, it essentially hands Iran victory in this war.

Do the president and his officials realize what they are up against?

Iran is not a normal power. The Iranian ideology is evil through and through. No other nation matches its fanatical thinking and extreme religious beliefs. These leaders believe they have a religious duty to bring about a nuclear cataclysm so their messiah can return! No matter what happens, these religious zealots believe they are the winners.

Making a nuclear deal with Iran is what President Barack Obama did in 2016. He lifted economic sanctions on Iran, flooding it with wealth. Iran turned around and sent that money to its terrorist proxies to attack Israel! It promised to stop enriching uranium beyond civilian levels—but it lied. It kept its enrichment system intact and kept importing uranium.

Iran has a track record of lying over and over again in similar agreements.

President Trump understood this, which is why, in his first term, he withdrew from Obama’s 2016 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (jcpoa). Yet now, somehow, he thinks he can get a better deal—even though Iran’s negotiating positions have not changed.

Iran cannot be trusted. It has broken its agreements with the United Nations over nuclear inspections countless times. The inspections never achieved anything. Iran keeps deceiving the West, buying time to continue its nuclear program—and the UN and the rest of the world play along.

Can anything good come out of these negotiations? The plain answer is no! Iran loves to negotiate with the West because it always wins! These talks are a game, and Iran plays it perfectly. The West stupidly gives the Iranians what they want, fooling ourselves that Iran is sincere and that it is changing—until all is lost!

The Iranians are terrorists to the core! President Trump’s hope that these terrorists can be useful in a peaceful transition is delusional. He should not even be talking to them!

In our April 2025 issue, I commented on some indications early in his term that President Trump would dangerously trust villains like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hamas. I also commented on the idea of an Iranian nuclear deal. I wrote: “President Trump also says he wants to do a deal with Iran over its nuclear program. If he does, that will be yet another deal with the devil! Any deal will expand Iran’s ability to spread its evil terror across the Middle East. It threatens to unleash more ‘October 7’ massacres …” (“Does Donald Trump Know the Way to Peace?”, theTrumpet.com/31135).

President Trump is crafting a similar deal right now. Will we never learn?

The Details

The memorandum is not a treaty; it is a two-month extension of the ceasefire President Trump agreed to in April. But along with the ceasefire extension, it gives Iran substantial gifts.

In exchange for Iran lifting its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the United States lifted its own blockade of Iranian ships traveling the waterway. The U.S. also lifted sanctions on its oil trade, including the ability to trade in U.S. dollars. Iran hasn’t had this kind of financial freedom since the 2016 deal.

President Trump also pledged to unfreeze billions of dollars in Iranian assets held in global banks. Some of this was reportedly being unfrozen before the memorandum was even signed. The United Arab Emirates was reportedly making $20 billion in assets available to Iran the week prior. This would not have happened without the U.S. government’s consent.

The memorandum goes further than just unfreezing assets Iran already owns. One of its points states, “Together with regional partners, the U.S. will create a comprehensive plan to rehabilitate and assist in the economic development of Iran. It will also ensure financing of at least $300 billion.”

President Trump is notorious for making big promises and threats without following through. But here he offered Iran $300 billion! If just 10 percent of that money made it to Iran’s coffers, it would be a catastrophe!

The memorandum also states the U.S. will “commit to ending all types of sanctions currently facing Iran”—including “all unilateral U.S. sanctions, both primary and secondary,” as well as UN sanctions. Those “unilateral sanctions” are the ones Trump himself placed on Iran in 2018. The UN sanctions are the “snapback sanctions” France, Germany and the United Kingdom triggered last year as part of the compliance provisions of the 2016 jcpoa. President Trump is offering to get rid of even the few restrictions the Obama deal contained!

What does the U.S. get in return? In the memorandum, Iran commits to never building a nuclear weapon. But Iran has always claimed it doesn’t want a nuclear weapon—even as it rushes toward building a nuclear weapon!

Echoes of Obama

The similarities between what President Trump is doing and the 2016 jcpoa are startling.

In the ongoing nuclear talks, one of the main points is the suspension of uranium enrichment. The New York Times’s sources claim the U.S. has “demanded for months” that Iran agree to a 20-year enrichment moratorium. “The Iranians have countered by offering a 10-year halt, but American officials believe they will settle for 15 years.”

A “sunset clause”—a date when the restrictions expire and Iran can continue its weapons-grade enrichment—was one of the hallmarks of the Obama deal. This was one of its most dangerous aspects. Yet this has apparently been President Trump’s position “for months.”

In other words, President Trump’s deal looks a lot like the Obama deal—if not worse.

The wording of this deal is important. “Treaties,” according to the Constitution, fall under the jurisdiction and oversight of Congress. That is why President Obama called his deal the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.” A “plan of action” has no legal designation that would require the consent of Congress. The same is true of a “memorandum of understanding.” It appears President Trump, like Obama before him, is trying to sidestep Congress.

These similarities are why many commentators say the Trump deal is the Obama deal coming back from the dead. Lee Smith wrote on May 29, “The truth is that the ultimate consequences of the deal Trump is now considering make it worse than Obama’s.” British journalist Melanie Phillips wrote on June 9, “President Trump is now at serious risk of turning into a second Obama.”

As I write in my book America Under Attack, President Obama made his deal because he shared Iran’s goal of destroying America. This is not President Trump’s goal. He is entering negotiations out of naivety and pride in his own ability rather than outright malice. But if he doesn’t change course, the end result will be the same!

As America Under Attack explains, a prophecy in 2 Kings 14 shows that God sent Donald Trump to save America from Obama’s attacks through the Iran deal and in many other ways. Had God not intervened to save America “by the hand” of Donald Trump, then America’s republic would have been blotted out, and Iran’s theocracy would probably have a nuclear weapon!

But now we see President Trump continuing Obama’s work! How could this possibly happen? Something is dreadfully wrong.

Betraying Israel

The flaws in President Trump’s dealings with Iran don’t end there. They particularly impact the State of Israel’s security.

The memorandum’s first point reads, “Iran and the U.S. declare an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon …” (emphasis mine). This is referring to Israel’s war against Hezbollah, which for years has been one of several proxies Iran has used to attack Israel.

When the war started, President Trump said one of his aims was to stop Iran’s funding of terror proxies. Today, his position is completely reversed. His deal is going to protect Iran’s proxies from Israel.

Iran threatened to walk away from peace talks unless the U.S. stopped Israel from attacking Hezbollah. President Trump obliged. He said on June 16 that he felt “Israel is fighting Hezbollah for too long and too many people are being killed.” “I’m not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah,” he said. “They should have been able to do the job faster. It just goes on forever. And when that happens, it throws a negative light on the big deal, and that’s the deal with Iran.”

Hezbollah is now weaker than it has been for decades. Iran knows Israel has the capability to finish Hezbollah off. But it also knows President Trump is desperate for a deal and is willing to muzzle Israel if that’s what it takes. It looks like it is successfully using this as a bargaining chip. Iran has ensured that Israel is not even invited to the peace talks, and it is successfully convincing Trump to protect Hezbollah from Israel.

On June 15, Hezbollah bombed Israel, breaking the ceasefire. Israel predictably retaliated. Iran then used this as an excuse to walk away from negotiations unless President Trump did something—and he took the bait. Iran uses this tactic over and over again because it always works!

Realize: Israel is working very hard to avoid hurting civilians. It is fighting Hezbollah’s terrorists and murderers who have killed hundreds of Jews! Israelis know they need a real fighting spirit for their nation to survive. President Trump had a lot of fighting spirit when he was battling Obama’s “deep state” takeover. Where is that fighting spirit now when it comes to helping an ally in a severe crisis?

President Trump says he is a man of peace, but he isn’t bringing peace to Israel. It looks like he is bringing the opposite! In talking to Iran, he is dealing with the devil. When it comes to peace negotiations and international diplomacy, the president has a deadly weakness.

The Cause

With the war at a stalemate, President Trump has realized that America’s military cannot defeat Iran. Smith summarized the situation: “The reason that Trump’s Iran policy is coming to look just like Obama’s is simple: Once you stop military actions, there’s no room left on the board except Obama’s position, which is to concede everything to the Iranians while painting it as a victory.”

Park MacDougald wrote for Tablet: “Trump set out to effectively wipe Iran off the geopolitical map. Now, he’s haggling over bribes with a regime he’s claimed on dozens of occasions to have already annihilated. Even for Trump, who is above all a salesman, it’s hard to sell this as a victory.”

After the initial ceasefire in April, President Trump told the media he had achieved “total and complete victory.” But the truth is that America lost the war.

There is a massive spiritual reason for this.

The reason America has been unable to defeat Iran is that, as Herbert W. Armstrong explained in The United States and Britain in Prophecy, our nation has forsaken God! God prophesied in Leviticus 26:19-20 that if His people forsook Him, He would break the pride of their power and have their strength spent in vain. Defeat in the Iran war continues the trend which was first foretold by Herbert W. Armstrong and which the Trumpet has often highlighted: America has not won a single war since World War ii! And He is going to bring far more severe curses on America very soon if its leaders and people do not repent!

Yet sadly, instead of recognizing and confessing the sins that led to those humiliating losses, we are withdrawing from the world and indulging in our sins all the more!

President Trump fights for many good causes. But in the process, he gets people to look to him as the solution—not to the omnipotent, all-powerful God! We need a leader who will lead our people to embrace the living God—not a puny, helpless man! This is a great deception and a great sin!

President Trump is right to worry about world peace. But negotiating with beastly powers like Iran is not the way to peace. Only God can save us from the storm that is building.

God has given America a brief window to repent of its sins, including in its foreign policy. But if America does not repent, we are heading toward bloody, nuclear world war!

This is not a man’s prediction. It is God’s biblical warning!