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President Donald Trump hit back at reports this week suggesting that the United States would potentially invest money into Iranian reconstruction in the aftermath of more than 100 days of conflict.
“We are not investing any money in Iran, by the way,” the president told reporters in France, while speaking at the G7 Summit. “That rumor got out there yesterday; it was ridiculous.”
He remarked, “We have the right to go in someday…but we are not investing any money, we have no obligation to invest any money in Iran.”
The president’s comments come on the heels of circulating reports in the media that there may have been a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran upon the conclusion of the war – a rumor that seems to have been propagated by the Iranians themselves.
“That’s the sort of thing they could have access to, funded by the Gulf Coast coalition, so long as they honor their end of the obligation,” Vice President J.D. Vance told CBS Mornings this week.
On Tuesday, VP Vance hit the Fox News circuit to further clarify the situation, somewhat in tandem with President Trump’s comments at the G7.
“You see certain people in the American media literally recirculating hardliner talking points from the IRGC instead of telling the truth about what’s going on,” Vance said. “First of all, not a single American cent goes to Iran, not $300 billion, not $24 billion – not any of the money, the dollar figures that I’ve seen floating around.”
The vice president said that, secondly, “this is a firm commitment backed up by verifiable action to never develop or buy a nuclear weapon by the Iranians, which remember, that was the whole point of this entire operation!”
However, Vance pointed out that there are benefits to Iran “if they perform their end of the obligation – not money from the United States, but maybe Qatar or the UAE or Saudi Arabia. Maybe they want to invest in Iran and build a power plant.”
He said that the United States’ approach to such a scenario would be predicated on whether Iran was “behaving properly.”
Vance emphasized that Iran doesn’t benefit from “any of that stuff unless they totally transform themselves as a country – and if they do, that’s a huge win for everybody, for the region.”