Trump administration touts Iran deal as a payday for US farmers, but
Iran denies it
[June 24, 2026]
By PAUL WISEMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD
Vance say their interim deal to end the war with Iran will deliver a
financial windfall to American farmers.
But the Iranians deny it. And in the absence of more details, sanctions
experts are flummoxed over exactly how billions of dollars’ worth of
Iranian assets would make their way to the American heartland from the
escrow accounts where they’ve been locked for years by U.S. sanctions.
A tentative agreement reached last week would reopen the Strait of
Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas once
passed, and allow Iran to start selling its oil freely again during a
60-day period when the two countries will continue negotiating key
issues. The memorandum of understanding also promised to unfreeze
Iranian assets.
Trump’s deal has come under fire for failing to address the reasons the
president cited for going to war with Iran on Feb. 28, including curbing
Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, its missile program and its support for
militant groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Lashing back at critics Tuesday on his Truth Social media platform,
Trump said U.S. farmers would get a payday: The U.S. Treasury
Department, he wrote, would release the Iranian assets “into escrow,
controlled by the U.S.A., and will be used for the purchase of food and
medical supplies, exclusively from the United States, including Corn,
Wheat, and Soybeans from our great American farmers. These are things
that are desperately needed by Iran.’’
Vance, who spoke about the proposal after high-level talks in
Switzerland, and Trump say that any frozen funds and assets held outside
of Iran will be used to buy U.S. crops.
But the Iranians deny that's part of the deal. A spokesperson for the
Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmail Baghaei, said any agricultural
purchases would be based on “prices and quality,’’ not terms dictated by
Washington.
“It is interesting that the philosophy and goal of the war, which was
the destruction of the Iranian civilization and the collapse of Iran,
has become enriching American farmers,” Baghaei said.
Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, rejected Vance’s contention
that the U.S. and Qatar would dictate how Iran uses unfrozen funds.
“Iran is the only country who decides what to do with those assets,” he
told reporters.
A U.S. official dismissed the contradiction, asserting that Iranian
leaders were speaking to their domestic audience. The official spoke on
condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the
record.
Joseph Glauber, a research fellow emeritus at the International Food
Policy Research Institute, said Iran was unlikely to abandon its other
trade partners on food.
[to top of second column]
|
U.S. Vice President JD Vance before boarding Air Force Two at Emmen
Military Air Base, Emmen, Switzerland, Monday, June 22, 2026, after
the U.S. and Iran held high-level talks at the Lake Lucerne Summit.
(Nathan Howard/Pool Photo via AP)
Iran’s major suppliers include Brazil, India, Turkey, the European
Union, Canada, Australia and Argentina, he said. Trump’s demand to buy
from the U.S. would “create some hard feelings with some of our
competitors.”
Under previous sanctions, the U.S. has required that money foreign
countries spend on imports from Iran — such as South Korean purchases of
oil and Iraqi purchases of Iranian electricity — be locked in escrow
accounts and typically released only if the Treasury approves and if the
proceeds go toward “non-sanctionable’’ items such as food and medicine.
On Monday, the U.S. Treasury approved the sale of Iranian oil,
petrochemicals and petroleum products through Aug. 21. It did not
mention any escrow accounts.
Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who
coordinated efforts to put diplomatic pressure on Iran in the first
Trump administration, said in a post on X that he would welcome “a
clarification that Iran is actually restricted to only buying U.S.
agricultural products.”
Richard Nephew, senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center
on Global Energy Policy, said it’s unclear what the new U.S.-Iran
agreement actually means for releasing restricted Iranian assets.
Could the U.S. require that the assets be used to buy American farm
products?
“Well, we can try!’’ Nephew, who helped design Iran sanctions in the
Obama and Biden administrations, said by email. “All you really need to
do is to tell a foreign bank that they can move the money but only to a
U.S. bank to buy soybeans or whatever."
Banks do not have to comply, he said. If they refuse, the U.S. could
sanction them as well.
But it's rare for the U.S. to conduct itself that way, he added, “in
part because we don’t usually like to give the impression that we treat
national security issues as a cash grab.”
___
Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Michelle L. Price in Washington
contributed to this report.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
