President Trump takes center-stage with host President Emmanuel Macron for the parting shot from the G7 summit in Évian-les-Baines, France Wednesday.

•Our contributing pundits offer short takes on the 1.5-page MOU signed by President Trump and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian in our Right and Left columns. Read Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s detailed analysis/commentary in The Gray Area.

Crux of the MOU – President Trump and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian signed the peace deal, or memorandum of understanding, or 60-day ceasefire, Wednesday. Trump signed at the Palace of Versailles where he enjoyed an elegant state dinner with French President Emmanual Macron, after the G7 summit. Pezeshkian presumably signed in Tehran.

Israel is delegated to one of the US’ allies in the opening paragraph of the memorandum of understanding triggering a 60-day (“permanent”?) ceasefire between the US and Iran. 

“The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war by signing this MOU declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operations against each other, and to refrain [from] the threat or use of force against each other and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. The final deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts including Lebanon, and other provisions of this paragraph.” [Via The New York Times.]

That unnamed ally, formerly known as the co-sponsor of the 15-week war on Iran with the United States, might not be on-board, according to The Times of Israel, which scoops Thursday that “Israel is not backing down on keeping troops in southern Lebanon …” Officials close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say Israel is holding “stubborn” talks with the US on the matter.

Is Netanyahu getting the US stuck in the sort of quagmire Trump promised to avoid?

6-7 … Paragraph six of the MOU develops “a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least $USD 300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development” of Iran, to be finalized within 60 days, which sounds suspiciously like another attempt to develop luxury seaside resorts, as floated by the Trump administration in Israel’s war on Gaza last year, or the Jared Kushner/Ivanka Trump plan to develop an island off the coast of Albania.

Paragraph seven terminates “all types of sanctions against Iran, including the United Nations Security Council resolutions and IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] Board of Governors resolutions and unilateral US sanctions.” (Hat tip to Military Times.)

Nukes in 8 … “Iran reaffirms that it shall not pursue or develop nuclear weapons” and the US and Iran “have agreed to resolve disposition of stockpile enriched material pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon” in paragraph seven.

The MOU “sidesteps” the reasons the Trump administration went into Iran, The Wall Street Journal reports in its analysis, and “makes no demands on Tehran over its militias or huge arsenal of missiles.”

Trump 45’s vice president, Mike Pence, says the deal “smacked of appeasement,” the BBC reports.

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No Appeasement Here – The Federal Open Market Committee under new Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh voted to keep interest rates steady Wednesday, in the 3.5% to 3.75% range. Not what President Trump wanted from his hand-picked chairman, but perhaps what he was asking for with a jump in inflation to 4.2% thanks mostly to the war on Iran. 

Unless that Consumer Price Index number comes down quickly, you can expect a likely rate hike or two in the second half of the year. Eight FOMC members anonymously project the Fed will hold that interest rate range, but nine see room for an increase while only one of the members sees room to cut, USA Today reports.

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Less Than $4 – With the signing of the US-Iran MOU/peace deal, the national average price of a gallon of unleaded regular has dropped to $3.999 Thursday, down 2.6 cents from Wednesday and up $1.024 from February 28. Diesel is down 3.3 cents to $5.129 per gallon, up $1.314 from late February. – Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa