The emerging agreement between the United States and Iran, which aims to extend a fragile ceasefire for 60 days and initiate negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, represents a victory for Iran in four distinct aspects, while offering only a single advantage to the United States.
In my assessment, the current situation reflects an indirect victory for Iran. Despite enduring over a month of bombing, Iran managed to close the strait, maintain its closure, and only agreed to reopen it through a negotiated settlement with the United States. None of the Trump administration’s stated war objectives—regime change, securing a comprehensive nuclear agreement, or forcibly reopening the strait—have been achieved.
In a major win for the U.S., the proposed memorandum of understanding, which is still pending approval from President Donald Trump, says that ship movements through the Strait of Hormuz will be “unrestricted” and that no fees or tolls will be charged. For weeks, Iran has insisted that it retain control of the strait with Oman and be able to charge ships fees.
In a triumph for Iran, there is no agreement in the emerging deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program or its stockpile of enriched uranium. The memorandum, according to Axios, contains “an Iranian commitment not to pursue a nuclear weapon.” That is not new. Iranian leaders have said for years that they will not pursue a nuclear weapon.
Under the agreement, which the MOU has not independently reviewed, negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear program will take place during the new 60-day ceasefire, which was one of Iran’s demands.
Second, the memorandum contains no agreement on what will happen to Iran’s 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium. There is only a promise to discuss how to “dispose” of it, which experts have said could mean allowing Iran to down-blend the uranium to a lower enrichment level and keep it inside Iran.
Iran offered to do that before the war began, according to negotiations. Trump instead attacked Iran and has repeatedly demanded that the Islamic Republic hand over its enriched uranium to the U.S.
Third, there is no mention of limiting Iran’s missile stockpile, which U.S. officials hoped to destroy during the war. The latest U.S. intelligence assessments found that 70% of Iran’s missile stockpile survived the war. Iran will still be able to threaten Israel and Gulf countries with its missiles.
Fourth, there is no mention of Iran’s proxies, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. One of the goals when Trump announced the war was to ensure that Iran’s “proxies can no longer destabilize the region.”
The Trump administration’s stance on the future of the Iran war keeps going back and forth between promising progress on a peace deal – and issuing new threats to attack Iran. So how can anybody know what’s really happening?
And that makes policy decisions more dependent on Trump’s character, his preferences, particularly his temperament.
On evaluating the movements of futures on different time charts, I find that, though gold futures showed some reversal on Thursday after testing the day’s low at $4,402, they closed the day at $4,532.
On Friday, after starting the day at $4,526.01, gold futures tested the day’s high at $4,550.65 and the day’s low at $4,522.50; gold futures are trading at $4,545.76, just below the immediate resistance at the 9 EMA ($4,554.72), which is currently below the 20 EMA ($4,598).
Undoubtedly, both the 9 EMA and 20 EMA are currently below the significant support at the 100 EMA ($4,634.25), forming a “Bearish Crossover” on daily charts.
On the upper side, gold futures could face significant selling pressure below the 9 EMA, 20 EMA, and 100 EMA levels, while even a breakout above the 100 EMA will face significant resistance at the 50 EMA ($4,573), from where a fresh selling spree is likely to generate.
I conclude that the overall scenario could take a U-turn on weekends as the U.S. President Donald Trump is using the “Madam Theory” to try to change the world since he resumed office on January 20, 2025.
Now, he let the world believe he had agreed to a 60-day pause to allow Iran to resume negotiations. And then he bombed anyway.
A pattern is emerging: The most predictable thing about Trump is his unpredictability. He changes his mind. He contradicts himself. He is inconsistent.
Undoubtedly, Trump has put together a highly centralized policy-making operation, arguably the most centralized, at least in the area of foreign policy, since Richard Nixon, a theory which is described by the political scientists as “Madam Theory”.
I find that President Trump’s policy on resolving this issue is elevating global stagflation fears, which could be a challenging task for global central banks, which have started to hike interest rates to meet their target to control inflationary pressure, and this will continue to keep the gold futures under extensive selling pressure this year.
Disclaimer: Readers are advised to take any position in gold at their own risk, as this analysis is solely based on observations.
