For years, President Trump has criticized the nuclear deal struck in 2015 between then President Barack Obama and Tehran, saying the agreement effectively gave Iran $1.7 billion in cash and other financial relief without a guarantee that the country would never obtain nuclear weapons.
Now, the question of whether Iran will get another financial windfall is one of the most sensitive issues looming over the preliminary peace agreement negotiated by the Trump administration.
The full text of the deal, according to a U.S. official who spoke with reporters on the condition of anonymity on Wednesday, requires the United States to develop a “definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least U.S.D. 300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of Iran.”
The United States would also immediately lift restrictions of Iran’s oil exports and eventually terminate all sanctions on Tehran and unfreeze its assets as part of a final deal, according to other sections of the deal laid out by the U.S. official.
The deal’s text does not make clear who would pay for the reconstruction fund, which would be several times larger than the $1.7 billion Mr. Trump has often criticized Mr. Obama for providing in the last agreement. At the Group of 7 summit on Wednesday, Mr. Trump denied that the U.S. government would contribute to the fund.
If it becomes a reality, the financial relief proposed in the agreement would be “dramatically more extensive” than was provided under the Obama-era agreement, said Daniel Shapiro, an Iran expert and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based research institute. He said the deal appears to envision integrating Iran into the global economy, though it is unclear how and if the United States would put conditions on the financial relief.
As part of the 2015 Obama-era deal, the United States lifted devastating financial sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program, and shipped Tehran $1.7 billion in cash months after the agreement was cut. That cash payment was a refund of sorts. Iran had paid the United States $1.7 billion for military equipment that it never received after the shah was toppled in 1979.
Iran also gained access to long-frozen foreign assets in the 2015 agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The U.S. Treasury Department estimated that Tehran could withdraw about $50 billion from overseas accounts at the time the deal was concluded. Critics of the agreement argue the actual figure was closer to $100 billion.
Supporters of the Obama-era deal said unfreezing the assets was intended to make it easier for Iranian leaders to convince hard-liners within the government who opposed restricting the nuclear program that there was a benefit to making concessions to the United States.
Opponents saw it as financing for armed groups opposed to Israel and the United States, including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. “The criticism was that the money could have been used — or freed up other money — to continue to arm terrorist proxies, build out Iran’s ballistic missile program and engage in other forms of repression,” Mr. Shapiro said.
It is difficult to assess how Iran used those billions in the end, though few issues have animated Mr. Trump and other critics of the Obama-era deal as much as the funds made available to Tehran.
Those opponents, including many Republicans in Congress and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, argue that Iran sent much of the money to its foreign proxies.
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