Inside Washington's interim deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz

Welcome to White House Watch. Let's dive into two huge issues: * Trump signs interim deal with Iran * What Kevin Warsh said during his first Fed meeting The US and Iran have electronically signed an interim deal that extends their ceasefire and offers concessions to the Islamic republic, according to a report by my colleagues Steff Chávez, Andrew England and Amy Mackinnon. US President Donald Trump signed the memorandum of understanding in Versailles, France, on Wednesday after he had said Washington would release frozen Iranian funds and lift sanctions "as soon as they behave". Washington's interim deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz would "terminate all types of sanctions" on Iran, including UN Security Council resolutions. The memorandum of understanding stated that the US would work with regional partners to establish a $300bn fund for Iran's "reconstruction and economic development", which would be contingent on a final deal. Earlier on Wednesday, the president played down talk of the US investing in the fund. A person briefed on the talks said it was designed for companies that wanted to invest in Iran. The interim deal extends the ceasefire and lays the framework for nuclear negotiations. The parties said they would find a "mutually agreed" mechanism to handle Iran's enriched uranium. The MoU sets out a "minimum" for the dilution of the stockpile on site, under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Trump said he would allow Iran to keep some of its ballistic missiles. Critics of the president have asked whether the concessions Tehran made were worth four months of war, billions of dollars in cost, the depletion of US weapons stocks and friction with allies, as James Politi and Abigail Hauslohner have reported. Former US president Barack Obama recently told ABC that "it is doubtful that any agreement that arises is going to be significantly different or a significant improvement from the deal that we had" in 2015. Latest headlines * Wall Street groups are warning US regulators that their plans to implement "Basel Endgame" global bank capital requirements will threaten liquidity in the $29tn Treasury market. * Trump has delayed the former Securities and Exchange Commission chair Jay Clayton's confirmation hearing to become head of US intelligence, injecting fresh chaos into the fraught process of selecting a leader for Washington's spy agencies. * A former Citigroup executive says she was sacked after raising concerns about the Wall Street bank's courting of Trump as a client. * Anthropic's chief executive told G7 leaders they must "resist the temptation to splinter" over the rollout of advanced AI tools. * The Trump administration will pay almost $800mn to withdraw from offshore wind leases with power producer Invenergy. What we're hearing Kevin Warsh vowed in his first meeting as Federal Reserve chair to contain an inflationary surge fuelled by the Iran war, triggering a drop in US government bonds as traders cranked up bets on interest rate rises, reports colleagues Claire Jones, Myles McCormick and Kate Duguid. In a sign of the central bank's hawkish shift, all of the Federal Open Market Committee voters supported the decision to hold borrowing costs within a 3.5 per cent to 3.75 per cent range -- marking the first time no one on the committee supported a cut. It was also the first meeting without a dissenting vote since June 2025. The Fed chair began a much-vaunted revamp in how the central bank talks to Wall Street, slimming down the statement released following the rate-setting meeting and removing so-called "forward guidance" that previously provided signals on what policymakers may do next. Warsh also did not submit economic projections that make up the Federal Reserve's "dot plot". In the press conference, Jones asked Warsh why he didn't raise rates, considering the Fed noted in its short statement that inflation was "elevated" compared with its 2 per cent target. Warsh responded that he would be "very curt". "I've got nothing more to say than the statement itself," added Warsh. "Market reactions to what we say unfiltered, I think, is more helpful than having delivered a statement, and me then improvising further upon it." Warsh was confirmed by the US Senate last month after the justice department dropped its investigation of the Fed's building project. The new chair said on Wednesday that the central bank's inspector general would publish by the end of the summer a report into cost overruns of the headquarters' renovation. The inaugural FT Weekend Festival in New York City is happening this Saturday. Join Paul Krugman, Celine Song, John Lithgow and many more at Spring Studios or online. Register now and, as a newsletter subscriber, save 10 per cent off with the code FTNewsletters.