He said the plan, conceived by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, would require the money be spent on American agricultural products.
“We wanted to make sure that we set up a process where if we ever unfreeze Iranian assets, we can ensure that money, that Iranian money, goes to help the people of Iran and not to fund terrorism,” he said.
The plan, devised in coordination with Qatar, would direct the funds toward “American soy, American corn and American wheat for the benefit of the Iranian people,” he said.
Many Iran hawks have criticized Trump’s agreement with Iran for allowing financial relief to flow into the country. While the US says unfrozen Iranian assets won’t be put toward funding terrorist groups, some have suggested the humanitarian assistance would free up other money for malign purposes.
The set-up Vance described bears some resemblance to a mechanism included in an agreement under President Joe Biden, when Iranian funds were moved from restricted accounts in South Korea as part of a September 2023 deal to release five Americans who had been detained in Iran.
Iran was only going to be permitted to use the money for specific humanitarian purchases like food, agricultural products and medicine, and Biden administration officials stressed each transaction using the funds would be monitored by the US Treasury Department.
Vance described the arrangement as “a classic Trump deal, where if Iranian assets are ever unfrozen, they’re going to go to make American farmers richer and to feed the Iranian people.”
In remarks from Switzerland Monday, Vice President JD Vance touted what he called a “very, very good day” of negotiations between the US and Iran Sunday, touting four major priorities during the technical talks ahead.
“First, we wanted to build a mechanism for keeping the Strait of Hormuz open — it is open,” Vance told reporters at Bürgenstock, adding that as boats begin to traverse the crucial waterway, participants “wanted to make sure that we actually set up the coordination mechanism” for de-mining operations and the resumption of trade.
Sunday was a “very, very good” day of negotiations between the US and Iran in Switzerland, Vice President JD Vance said.
The vice president outlined a set of four major priorities as technical talks are expected to continue in the coming days. He said Iran has agreed to admit monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency into the country, and said some progress has been made in negotiations to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
“We set the foundation — we haven’t built the house — but we’ve laid a successful foundation to get to a good place for the American people,” the vice president said, as he readies to depart Switzerland.
Denies that Trump’s reproach to Iran’s president upended negotiations: “What we told the Iranians yesterday is when you guys engage in what us Millennials might call trash talk, you can’t expect the president of the United States not to respond and not to correct the record.”
On Iran agreeing to allow in nuclear inspectors: “That is a major milestone for the American people, and the first step in permanently denuclearizing or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran, and that’s exactly what we wanted to do.”
Status of negotiations between Israel and Hezbollah: “This is a work in progress, but what we’ve done is actually set up the operation so that we can ensure it doesn’t spiral out of control in the future.”
An initiative for unfreezing Iranian assets: “We wanted to make sure that we set up a process where if we ever unfreeze Iranian assets, we can ensure that money, that Iranian money, goes to help the people of Iran and not to fund terrorism,” Vance said, adding that the US and Qatar would have approval over the process. “The money would actually go to buy American soy, American corn and American wheat for the benefit of the Iranian people,” he added, calling it a “classic Trump deal.”