Trump Promised Iran's Oil Money Would Go to American Farmers — Iran's Central Bank Just Called His Bluff
Donald Trump stood before cameras at the White House on Monday and told American farmers exactly what they wanted to hear: that Iran's unfrozen oil billions were headed straight to corn and soybean growers across the heartland. There was just one problem. Iran's own central bank immediately shot the promise dead in the water.
When CNBC's Eamon Javers pressed Trump at a White House executive order signing event on whether he could guarantee that Iran would not use oil profits to rebuild its military, the President of the United States — the self-described ultimate dealmaker — had nothing but a shrug disguised as swagger.
"Well, they're not supposed to be doing that, so we'll see," Trump told CNBC's Eamon Javers at the White House during an executive order signing event when asked if he could ensure Iran would not use oil money for that purpose.
"We'll see." That's the guarantee Trump offered to the farmers, the workers, and the families who were told this deal was being struck in their name.
Trump painted a rosy picture of Iranian cash flooding into rural America, insisting the unfrozen funds would be spent on American agricultural products — and only American agricultural products.
"But they're supposed to use money to buy food for their people, because right now their people are very hungry, and they're buying it exclusively from us: corn, soybeans," Trump said.
He even allowed himself a moment of wishful thinking about the payday awaiting U.S. farmers.
"Should be a lot of money," he said. "I hope it's a lot of money."
Trump went further, declaring that Iranian funds being unfrozen as part of a memorandum of understanding between the two countries "is going to be used to buy food, and the food is going to be bought exclusively through the United States, from our farmers, and corn, soybeans, all of the things they need are going to be bought from our farmers."
"So our farmers are very happy," Trump said.
But while Trump was making those assurances, Abdolnaser Hemmati, the governor of Iran's central bank, was telling a very different story to the Iranian news agency Tasnim — one that exposed just how hollow Trump's promises to Main Street actually are.
"There is no obligation to buy agricultural inputs from the U.S.," Hemmati said, according to Tasnim.
Read that again. No obligation. None. The deal that Trump sold to American farmers as a guaranteed windfall contains, according to Iran's own central banker, no binding requirement to spend a single dollar on U.S. goods.
"Based on the signed notes, there is no obligation to purchase agricultural inputs from the U.S.," Hemmati said, according to Tasnim.
Hemmati did allow that if U.S. products are competitive in price and quality compared to those of other countries, there is no block on buying them — a far cry from the exclusive, locked-in deal Trump was boasting about.
"We need to buy billions of dollars worth of essential goods and medicine annually, and it does not matter to us from which source we pay for these essential goods," he said, according to Tasnim.
The broader context makes Trump's bluster look even worse for working Americans. His Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, authorized the import of Iranian oil and refined petroleum products into the United States through at least August, following peace talks between Iran and the U.S. in Switzerland. And last Thursday, the U.S. Navy lifted a blockade of Iran's ports and coastal areas — a blockade that had been in place since April and had dramatically curtailed Iranian oil exports. American leverage, in other words, has already been surrendered.
Wall Street gets cheaper oil. Iran gets unfrozen billions with no strings attached. And American farmers get Trump's two-word guarantee: "We'll see."