Trump team floats $300B Iran fund after rejecting Tehran’s past business pitch
Amid negotiations to end the war, an eye-catching new proposal from the Trump administration echoes past attempts to use business deals to avert new regional hostilities.
As negotiations to end the US-Israel-Iran war neared a potential breakthrough in late May, a surprising new detail surfaced: The US team had proposed a $300 billion postwar investment fund for Iran.
The idea, first reported on May 28 by the New York Times, offers a glimpse at how the Trump administration’s transactional foreign policy style has filtered into diplomacy aimed at ending the three-month-old conflict. It also, somewhat ironically, echoes earlier efforts by Tehran itself to dangle business opportunities in hopes of averting war before fighting broke out in February.
What happened: The report on the massive fund’s inclusion in the talks arrived after weeks of negotiations over a preliminary memorandum of understanding that would extend the current ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, broader talks continue over Iran’s nuclear program, sanctions relief, unlocking frozen Iranian funds and a formal end to hostilities.
Among the most eye-catching new elements reportedly under discussion was a proposed international investment fund that Iranian and diplomatic sources told the New York Times could total roughly $300 billion. The fund would reportedly be tied to a final agreement ending the conflict and could help finance reconstruction and investment projects inside Iran.
