Vance says Iran won’t get $300B reconstruction fund ‘unless they totally transform themselves’
WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance defended the terms of the Iran peace deal on Tuesday, saying a proposed $300 billion reconstruction fund would not be available “unless they totally transform themselves.”
Vance spoke about the memorandum of understanding — signed Sunday by himself
and President Trump — as Republicans in Congress and foreign allies clamored to see the text.
“You see the propagandists are saying, ‘Here are all the things Iran gets,’ and the fine print, which [is] actually the big print in the actual agreement, is they don’t get any of that stuff unless they totally transform themselves as a country,” Vance told “Fox & Friends.”
“And if they do, that’s a huge win for everybody, for the region. If they don’t, no skin off our backs.” The $300 billion reconstruction fund would be paid for by Gulf Arab countries, with no anticipated US contribution, officials said.
The document states the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened toll-free for 60 days, but does not resolve the final status of the waterway, which will be addressed in follow-up talks also focused on disposing of Iran’s highly enriched uranium.
It’s unclear how the agreement describes the disbursement of frozen Iranian funds held by the US or the lucrative lifting of oil sanctions, though officials said those reprieves would be tied to concrete steps by Iran to dismantle its nuclear program and end support for proxies.
“Not a single cent of American money goes to Iran,” Vance said.
“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,” Vance said of the pact.
“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,” he said.
“Maybe they want to invest in Iran and build a power plant. The United States, our approach to that is going to be, ‘Yeah, you can do that, so long as the Iranians are behaving properly,’ but if they don’t behave properly, they don’t get any of the benefits of this bargain.”
Vance said that Iranian leaders are “trying to sell this deal as positively as possible to their domestic audience” — calling it “frustrating to me” but “expected.”
