Trump’s Iran deal falls short for these voters; some fear it could cost Republicans the midterm

US President Donald Trump’s interim agreement to end the war with Iran has dragged down his approval rating and garnered criticism across the political spectrum – even from his own supporters.

Recent interviews with 18 Americans who voted for Trump in 2024, a group that Reuters has interviewed monthly since he returned to office, show that most have doubts about the deal, which has reopened the Strait of Hormuz while temporarily lifting US oil sanctions on Iran and authorising a US$300 billion (S$388 billion) fund for its reconstruction.

“We need to truly weaken the Iranian regime instead of this, ‘beat them up a little bit and then step back and let them rebuild’,” said Terry Alberta, 65, a pilot in Michigan.

Overall, only a quarter of Americans believe the war with Iran was worth the costs, and a majority worry that the truce with Tehran is unlikely to last, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Many of the Trump voters feared his unpopular concessions to Iran would make it harder for Republicans to retain control of Congress in November’s midterm elections, although those most critical of the deal had already begun to lose faith in the President before the war. Six in the group believed he still had plans to bring down the Iranian government.

The group largely supported the war during its early days, believing US strikes were necessary to deplete Iran’s stockpile of long-range missiles and cripple its nuclear program.

Nearly four months later, with Iran politically emboldened and many of its military capabilities still intact, 14 of the voters criticised some aspects of the memorandum of understanding announced on June 14. Most were sceptical that Tehran could be trusted to honor any agreement and dismayed by the prospect of granting it billions of dollars to rebuild.

The US$300 billion fund will be a private investment vehicle rather than a government-funded plan, though exact details have not been released.

Juan Rivera, 26, said Trump “criticised his predecessors about negotiating with terrorists, and he’s basically done the same exact thing”.

Rivera still plans to support mostly Republican candidates in the midterms. But he said that when he volunteered recently to canvass Latino voters in his community near San Diego, many fellow Trump supporters were so disappointed by the President’s handling of the war, among other issues, that they felt unmotivated to back his party in November.

“A lot of people say: ‘Why should I vote when the president’s not doing what he promised?’” Rivera recalled.

Asked for comment, a White House spokesperson told Reuters that Trump’s achievement “on the battlefield and at the negotiating table is nothing short of remarkable and will strengthen American security for many years”.

Steve Egan, 65, a promotional product distributor in Tampa, soured on Trump in early 2025 after tariff-triggered price hikes hurt his business. From the outset, Egan was skeptical of the president’s rationale for the war and upset that it further jacked up the price of gas and other goods.

“Right now it doesn’t seem like it’s been worth it to go through all that,” he said, noting that the stated goal of regime change “didn’t happen.” His opinion of the president is now so low, Egan said, that Trump’s endorsement would be “the kiss of death” for him when deciding which candidates to vote for in the midterms.

Brandon Neumeister, 37, a Pennsylvania state corrections worker and former National Guardsman, said the conflict seemed only to have benefited oil companies. Even before the war, though, Neumeister said he was unlikely to vote in November because he was disgusted with politics.

Robert Billups, 35, of Washington state, was cautiously optimistic the peace deal would hold. But he believed the war had spawned more hostility toward the United States rather than making the country safer.

US Vice-President J.D. Vance, tasked with leading US negotiations with Iran, has fallen in his esteem, and Billups said he no longer feels preferential toward Republican candidates.

Come November, “whoever has a better strategy this time, I’m gonna vote for them regardless of their party,” he said.

Though Trump has been adamant about wanting to end the war, six of his more loyal voters expressed hope that he still had secret plans to bring Iran to heel.

Kate Mottl, 63, a secretary at a municipal office in the Chicago suburbs, said that “destroying” the regime in Tehran seemed like the only way to avert future conflict.

It would be “very disappointing” if Trump refrained from further military intervention, Mottl said, adding that she believed “there’s a bigger plan here”.

Rich Somora, 62, an engineer in North Carolina, agreed that Trump probably had more aggressive plans up his sleeve. “I can’t imagine that he would have gone through all this and not found out a way to get rid of those mullahs,” he said.

According to diplomats and analysts, however, the war has only strengthened the grip of Iran’s clerical rulers. If they remain in power for another month, Somora said, he’ll start to worry.

In Prescott, Arizona, 74-year-old retiree Joyce Kenney said she supported lifting sanctions and believed restoring Iran’s ability to trade with other countries would ensure its leaders honored the truce.

But the reconstruction fund was a bridge too far: “That’s not our responsibility,” she said. REUTERS