Washington Edges Toward Iran Exit, Presses Allies on Defense

The three-month Iran war moved toward an uneasy close on Sunday, though its terms remained contested. Iranian state media revealed a draft informal "Islamabad understanding" with Washington covering navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and the release of frozen Iranian assets, while President Donald Trump -- who sent Tehran a revised framework with tougher terms -- demanded that the strait open immediately to unrestricted shipping with no tolls, insisted Iran "must agree" never to build a nuclear weapon, and said the retaliatory naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman "will now be lifted." Yet the Pentagon kept the blockade in force: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said it remained in place and warned the US was ready to resume combat if diplomacy failed. Iran's negotiators said they had not approved the final text and could walk away, and an adviser to the supreme leader accused Trump of "betraying diplomacy for the third time."

The diplomacy unfolded amid live confrontation. Iran said it shot down a US MQ-1 Predator drone over its territorial waters, and US Central Command said it had disabled a Gambia-flagged vessel trying to reach an Iranian port. Oman reported detecting a naval mine in the strait, and a CNN analysis of satellite imagery found Iran had already reopened 50 of 69 tunnel entrances at 18 underground missile facilities hit in earlier strikes, with an estimated 1,000 missiles still stored. Trump told Fox News a "very good deal" was close, under which US forces would leave the region once Hormuz reopened and the nuclear issue was resolved; oil prices eased and US stocks edged to records on the optimism.

That drawdown extended well beyond the Gulf. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Hegseth told Asian allies that "the era of the United States subsidizing the defense of wealthy nations is over," pressing them toward 3.5 percent of GDP, while Japan's defense chief sought a firmer US commitment as partners weighed a future of thinner American protection against China. In Europe, a Pentagon source said Washington would propose at a June NATO force-generation conference to accelerate the removal of 5,000 troops from Germany -- announced earlier in May -- compressing a six-to-twelve-month timeline. Germany hosts about 35,000 US personnel, the largest American contingent on the continent.

At home, the day's grimmest news came from Longview, Washington, where authorities recovered the bodies of all nine missing workers from a chemical-tank implosion at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging plant, raising the death toll to 11. The tank, holding about 900,000 gallons of "white liquor," ruptured during an early-morning shift change on Tuesday; Fire Chief Brad Hannig confirmed the recovery of the last missing employee.

The AI build-out reshaped American industry in the background: Ford launched a $2 billion energy subsidiary, Ford Energy, for data-center storage; Bloom Energy's stock has surged about 1,200 percent over the past year; and GE Vernova booked $2.4 billion in electric-equipment orders for data centers in a single quarter, as tech firms and automakers pivot into power generation to feed surging electricity demand.