Fact Check: Did the US Under Obama Give Iran $150 Billion?

Relations between the U.S. and Iran worsened this week as Iran's foreign minister said the United States would suffer "heavy losses" if the Israel-Hamas conflict expanded.

As tensions simmer, conservative commentators shared claims that President Barack Obama's administration had given $150 billion to Iran, effectively, they argued, funding Hamas.

The Claim

A post on X by Jack Posobiec, posted on October 16, 2023, referenced a Charlie Kirk tweet from September 11, 2015, which stated "Iran funds Hamas. Hamas kills Americans and Jews. Now we give Iran $150 billion. Where do you think that money will go? #IranDeal"

Posobiec wrote "Charlie warned us and now people are mad at him."

The Facts

Kirk, founder of conservative student group Turning Point USA, was likely referring to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which granted Iran access to frozen assets.

This was not funding given to Iran. The amount quoted refers to foreign assets that belonged to Iran and were frozen by sanctions imposed to impede its nuclear program. The JCPOA was also an international agreement between Iran and a number of major world powers, including the U.S.

How much these assets were worth has not been released, but $150 billion is the highest estimate provided by U.S. officials.

The figure was mentioned in passing by Obama in an interview with The Atlantic in 2015, when questioned where the money could end up.

"The question is, if Iran has $150 billion parked outside the country, does the IRGC automatically get $150 billion?" Obama said.

"Does that $150 billion then translate by orders of magnitude into their capacity to project power throughout the region?"

The figure was not quoted by The Atlantic and Obama did not state where the estimate came from.

However, far lower estimates including by senior U.S. and Iranian officials were also shared.

In 2015, the former governor of Iran's central bank, Valiollah Seif, said in a state television address that the value of the frozen assets had been exaggerated.

Seif was sentenced in 2021 to 10 years in prison on corruption charges, reported Reuters.

The former official said that there were $29 billion of unlockable assets: $23 billion in foreign exchange that belonged to the bank and $6 billion of the Tehran government's money, The Times of Israel and Arabic news channel Al Arabiya reported in July 2015. The $29 billion Seif quoted was also reported by The New York Times.

Voice of America reported in January 2016, after the deal was signed, quotes from Seif saying Iran had gained access to $32 billion in assets.

Then U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told Congress in July 2015 that Iran gained access to $56 billion via the agreement, a fact check by PolitiFact in 2018 noted.

In an August 2015 written testimony, Adam J. Szubin, then-acting Under Secretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said that while estimates suggested the Central Bank of Iran had foreign exchange assets between $100 billion to $125 billion, the usable "liquid assets" after sanctions were lifted would be around $50 billion.

"The other $50-70 billion of total CBI foreign exchange assets are either obligated in illiquid projects (such as over 50 projects with China) that cannot be monetized quickly, if at all, or are composed of outstanding loans to Iranian entities that cannot repay them," Szubin said.

"These assets would not become accessible following sanctions relief."

In any case, the amount was not American taxpayer money, as perhaps implied by the phrase, "Now we give Iran $150 billion," though it is not entirely clear what "give" may mean in this context.

Whatever the truth of the figure, the deal, which committed Iran to cut back on its nuclear enrichment and development programs, did not only involve the United States. China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the wider European Union bloc all also agreed to lift sanctions on Iran.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in May 2018. Following the death of General Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian military commander, in a U.S. drone strike in January 2020 that was authorized by Trump, Iran said that it would no longer abide by the terms of the agreement.

Newsweek has contacted a Treasury spokesperson via email for comment.

After Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7, a number of Republicans also shared via social media posts that the Biden administration had recently paid $6 billion to Iran.

The U.S. had agreed to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian oil funds held in a South Korean bank, as well as return five Iranian prisoners who have faced charges in the U.S. in exchange for five Americans.

The United States has not publicly linked Iran to the attacks in Israel, following a report by The Wall Street Journal that suggested Tehran had played a role.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN on October 8: "We have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack, but there is certainly a long relationship."

Democratic Senator Cory Booker told CBS on Friday that the funds had been "frozen."

"A dollar of it has not gone out," said Booker, who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee. Senators, he said, had received "assurances" the money has been frozen.

The Ruling

False.

The U.S. did not "give" $150 billion to Iran in 2015. In 2015, as part of an international deal with Iran called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran agreed to cut back on nuclear enrichment programs in exchange for the unfreezing of its own assets.

The U.S. taxpayer paid nothing toward this, as might be implied by the post, and the value of the assets was said by some, including the U.S. Treasury, to be less than $150 billion.

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team

Update, 10/18/23, 8:30 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional background information.