Foreign Policy

No, Trump Isn't 'Paying' Iran $24 Billion To End the War

There’s a lot of confusion about sanctions relief and the U.S.-Iranian deal on the table. Hawks are exploiting it to sabotage the peace.

Matthew Petti | 6.17.2026 11:30 AM

Share on FacebookShare on XShare on RedditShare by emailPrint friendly versionCopy page URL Add Reason to Google

Media Contact & Reprint Requests

(illustration: Michele Ursi/Nabil Kassir/Dreamstime)

President Donald Trump's memorandum of understanding to end the war in the Middle East is running into a familiar criticism. "We're going to be releasing billions of dollars to this enemy," Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.) told the BBC. Sen. Chris Murphy (D–Conn.) called the memorandum "a payment to Iran" in a speech to reporters. Trump's former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, accused Trump of trying to "pay the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] to build a WMD [Weapon of Mass Destruction] program and terrorize the world."

It was, ironically, the same criticism that Trump had levied against Democratic outreach to Iran. "American taxpayer dollars helped fund [Hamas] attacks, which many reports are saying came from the Biden administration," he said in 2023, speaking of a deal to unfreeze Iranian bank accounts in Qatar. Trump was also obsessed with the image of President Barack Obama giving "pallets of cash" to Iran. Then, as now, hawks are confusing and deceiving the public about what sanctions relief really is.

A copy of the memorandum of understanding leaked to Bloomberg and CNN promises to gradually lift the U.S. economic sanctions that ban doing business with Iran. Because most international trade is done in U.S. dollars, these sanctions have been especially devastating to Iran's ability to export oil, to access its own money in foreign bank accounts, and to attract international investment, even from non-American businesses.

White House spokesman Steven Cheung denied the authenticity of the leaked memorandum without giving details. Nonetheless, Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance have confirmed the broad strokes of the deal in their public statements. The real agreement differs from the leaked text on a few........

© Reason.com