No, Biden’s new deal with Iran won’t involve ‘U.S. taxpayer dollars’

By Glenn Kessler April 1st 2022

“The reports of ongoing negotiations with Iran raise serious concerns about why the Administration is willing to engage and provide U.S. taxpayer dollars to a country adverse to America’s interest.”

— Letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, signed by 18 House Republicans, March 30

“Joe Biden will be the biggest funder of terrorism in the world, and American taxpayers are going to be the ones paying for it.”

— Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), interview on Fox News, March 19

The Biden administration appears to be nearing an agreement to restore the nuclear deal with Iran that was abandoned by the Trump administration. Given the controversy surrounding the deal negotiated by the Obama administration, Republicans are sharpening their criticism of the emerging pact. Banks, in a March 9 tweet, even asserted Biden would give nearly $100 billion in “taxpayer dollars” to Iran.

But this claim — that U.S. taxpayers will end up footing the bill — is really off base. Perhaps these lawmakers are confused after listening to President Donald Trump frequently make similar misleading claims about the Obama-era agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The Facts

Trump had two favorite lines about President Barack Obama and the Iran deal, both of which he said more than 130 times during his presidency. First, he would claim that Obama gave Iran $150 billion as part of the deal, often suggesting that these were taxpayer dollars. Then, he would add with astonishment, $1.8 billion was in cash.

But as we wrote a gazillion times, the first was completely wrong and the second was misplaced. Iran had billions of dollars that were frozen in foreign banks around the globe because of international sanctions over its nuclear program. So none of this was U.S. taxpayer funds; this was Iran’s money. The amount, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, was about $55 billion, though Iran’s Central Bank said it was even lower.

As for the $1.7 billion in cash — Trump always used the wrong figure — that was related to the settlement in 2016 of a decades-old claim between the two countries, not the nuclear deal. The initial payment was handed over the day after Iran released four American detainees, including The Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian. Officially, it was a coincidence, but many suspected the cash was in effect a ransom payment.

Thus, we were puzzled when we saw Republican lawmakers assert that U.S. taxpayer funds were going to be spent on behalf of Iran in any new deal. Since that had not been a feature of the old deal, we wondered if they had been misled by years of Trump’s rhetoric.