AID FOR AYATOLLAHS: FINANCIAL BENEFITS TO IRAN FACILITATED BY UNCLE SAM

Some $160B worth of benefits accrued to the regime during the last administration.

The Trump administration is currently undertaking negotiations with Iran with an aim to prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons, and bring peace to a region rocked with conflict, often funded by Iran itself, and, oddly enough, the United States.

As Trump weighs his options, Open the Books reviewed the financial benefits—worth at least $160 billion—incurred by Iran during the Biden administration through relaxed sanctions and a substantial payout to release Americans imprisoned by the Iranian regime.

$10 BILLION IN SANCTION RELIEF FROM IRAQI ENERGY PURCHASES

In November 2024, the Biden administration renewed sanction relief for Iran, worth an estimated $10 billion. The funding is from Iraq, which was granted a waiver to purchase electricity from Iran.

The waiver was initially given under the Trump administration in 2018 under strict rules that forced Iran to keep the funds in an escrow account in Baghdad. Under Biden, Iran could instead convert the funds from Iraqi dinars to euros, a currency that is far easier to use on the international markets. The Biden administration additionally maintained the funds could only be used for humanitarian purposes.

In March 2025 the Trump administration let the waiver lapse, stating that the expiration "ensures we do not allow Iran any degree of economic or financial relief” as the country apparently continues to pursue a nuclear weapons program, accusations which its leaders deny.

$6 BILLION FOR THE BIDEN HOSTAGE PAYOUT

In September 2023, the Biden administration unfroze $6 billion in sanctioned Iranian assets and granted clemency to five Iranian prisoners in exchange for five Americans imprisoned in Iran.

Critics have accused Iran of targeting the Americans, all Iranian dual citizens, for arbitrary arrest for political leverage over the United States. Two of the Americans had been held since 2018, and another since 2015. Two others did not wish to be named publicly.

A State Department spokesperson stated at the time that the money could only be used for “humanitarian transactions,” which would be strictly monitored. They added, "Given the due diligence involved and complexity of what have to be specific humanitarian transactions through this channel, it will take likely years for Iran to spend down this money."

After the Hamas attack on Israel shortly after the prisoner exchange, then-Secretary of State Anthony Blinken defended the administration against accusations that the money helped fund the attack. Blinken stated that “not a single dollar from that account has actually been spent to date.”

There have been no updates on when Iran began drawing down this account, or what it is spending the $6 billion on. Regardless, critics and analysts have noted that such funding is fungible, and Iran now has $6 billion in its budget that it does not need to spend on meeting the needs of its citizens.

OIL SANCTIONS NON-ENFORCEMENT

The Biden administration took a lax approach to enforcing oil sanctions against Iran, which generated an estimated $144 billion in petroleum revenue from 2021-2023.

The first Trump administration began re-imposing aggressive sanctions against Iranian oil exports in November 2018 in an effort to curb terrorism in the region and prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

The sanctions, which began under President Jimmy Carter and expanded under President Reagan, had been lifted under the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal. The Trump administration also withdrew from JCPOA in 2018.

The Trump White House put out a statement at the time, saying:

“The JCPOA, a horrible, one-sided deal, failed to achieve the fundamental objective of blocking all paths to an Iranian nuclear bomb, and it threw a lifeline of cash to a murderous dictatorship that has continued to spread bloodshed, violence, and chaos. ... By exiting the JCPOA, the United States is able to protect its national security by applying maximum economic pressure on the Iranian regime.”

The sanctions were successful, cutting Iranian petroleum export revenue from $65 billion in 2018 to $28 billion in 2019, to $16 billion in 2020. Those numbers rapidly rebounded under the Biden administration, which saw Iran collect $53 billion in petroleum revenue in 2023, according the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

A report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a government agency, stated that Iran made $144 billion in revenue from oil sales from 2021-2023. Exports ballooned from 608,000 barrels per day in 2020 to 916,000 in 2023.

Figures for 2024 will be published by the Energy Information Administration in the fall of 2025.

China, which does not recognize U.S. sanctions, is the largest importer of Iranian oil. Advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, which monitors Iranian shipping containers at sea, has estimated that every four out of five barrels, or about 80%, of Iranian oil are sold to China.

In April 2025 the Trump administration issued new sanctions on Chinese oil refineries that rely on Iranian oil, as a part of its “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran.

GRANTS

The United States has banned foreign assistance to Iran since 1984, when the country was designated a state sponsor of terror by the U.S. State Department. However, the U.S. still funds civil societies and media organizations promoting democratic principles in the country, primarily through the Department of State’s Near East Regional Democracy (NERD) Fund. The Iranian regime is hostile to this funding, which it interprets as fomenting regime-change activities.

According to a Congressional Research Service report, between FY 2009 and 2023, Congress appropriated over $600 million for NERD, although the government "does not publicize NERD activities, grantees, or beneficiaries due to the security risks posed by the Iranian government.” It is unclear if NERD programming was included in the Trump administration’s cuts to Department of State funding.

Other grants directly impacting Iran include $483,076 to the University of California, San Francisco for “reducing stigmatizing attitudes and behaviors of nursing students in simulated clinical visits of patients living with HIV in Iran,” which paid out $50,000 in a subaward to Iran-based Kerman University of Medical Sciences.

Open the Books reached out to HHS for comment on how an Iranian institute was allowed to receive taxpayer funds and will update this story if we receive a response.

The Department of State also maintained an EducationUSA Iran office, “committed to promoting the diversity of U.S. higher education to help Iranian students find their best fit,“ according to its website.

EducationUSA is a program of the State Department, which provides international students worldwide with information on how to apply to U.S. colleges and universities. In 2020 the Department of State spent $9,202 to “send EducationUSA Iran advisor to Dubai and Abu Dhabi to attend meetings on the higher education sector in the Middle East for one week in Feb 2020.” The Department of State requested $50 million to run EducationUSA for FY 2024.

In March of 2025 all but two EducationUSA domestic staffers were furloughed by the Trump administration as funding was frozen for the program.