The strait is 'open'. The ships aren't moving.

The deal has a signature now. On Monday President Trump and his vice-president signed, digitally, the agreement to lift the US blockade of Iran's ports and reopen the Strait of Hormuz; Iran's parliamentary speaker signed for Tehran. Trump declared the strait open. The formal ceremony is promised for Friday. The text commits both sides to 60 days without fighting and to nuclear talks that have not yet started.

What has not happened is the part that matters to anyone buying fuel. The tankers are still at anchor. Shipping firms are holding position, citing mines still in the water, the risk of drones and missiles, and crews worn down by three months of waiting. The US says mine-clearance begins only after Friday's signing. A strait declared open by social-media post is not the same as a strait that ships will cross.

For the British household the consequence is the lag. Brent crude has fallen hard — to around $81 a barrel on Monday, down from a wartime peak near $117 — but the forecourt and the energy bill move weeks behind the market, and only downward if the calm holds. The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that economists expect higher prices for fuel, groceries and flights to outlast the war itself. The headline says relief; the receipt will say later.

The deal arrives as the G7 leaders meet at Évian, on Lake Geneva, from Monday to Wednesday. It is an American settlement, brokered between Washington and Tehran, with Europe — Britain included — largely watching. Sir Keir Starmer spent Tuesday batting away reports of a snub by Trump after a hot-mic moment at the summit, insisting the two "get on really well" over a two-hour private dinner. The theatre of the relationship is being managed. The substance — defence spending, regional security, trade — is not being shaped in London.

That is the uncomfortable shape of it. A war that throttled a fifth of the world's seaborne oil was started, and is being stopped, by a few governments in a few rooms; the country whose drivers paid for it at the pump is a spectator to the ending. The deal could hold. It could also unravel inside its own 60 days, and the document that would tell us how it is meant to work has not yet been published.

What changed this week is direction, not arrival. The blockade is lifting; the ships are not yet sailing; the prices have not yet fallen. The thing to watch is the water, not the wording: when tankers move through Hormuz without an escort, the relief is real. Until then the open strait is a promise, and the bill is still ours.