Did Obama Send $400,000,000 In Cash To Tehran? Donald Trump's Big Charge

Former US President Barack Obama sent "planeloads of cash" to Iran during his time in office, Donald Trump has alleged. The President called Barack Obama's 2015 nuclear deal with Iran “maybe the worst deal” he had ever seen and claimed it handed “all power in the Middle East to Iran.”

“Barack Hussein Obama made maybe the worst deal I've ever seen because he gave all power in the Middle East to Iran,” Trump said. “He went the exact opposite way and I terminated that. If I didn't terminate that deal, they would be sitting with a massive nuclear weapon three years ago which would have been used already on Israel at least and other countries also,” the US president said.

In July 2015, Barack Obama signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran and the P5+1 countries, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and Germany, to curb Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions. 

Iran limited uranium enrichment, reduced centrifuges, and allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to conduct inspections for 10-15 years. The deal let Iran export oil and access international banking. In 2018, Donald Trump withdrew the US, calling the agreement flawed and accusing Iran of non-compliance.

On the day the JCPOA took effect in 2016, Iran released four American prisoners, and the Obama administration coordinated a covert transfer of $400 million in cash to Tehran. This transfer, confirmed by US officials, involved pallets of various foreign currencies, including Swiss francs and euros, being flown directly into the country. 

The payment represented the initial portion of a larger $1.7 billion settlement intended to resolve a decades-old legal dispute at The Hague. This conflict came from a failed arms deal dating back to the era of the Shah. Obama had previously described the transfer as a strategic win, noting that the Iranians had sought more than $10 billion in arbitration. 

“For the United States, this settlement saved us billions of dollars that could have been pursued by Iran. There was no benefit to the United States in dragging this out," Obama was quoted as saying by CNN at the time.

Trump now said, “The deal that Obama made gave them everything, including planeloads of cash. The airplane that flew over there? It was a Boeing 757. There were two of them loaded. They took out all the seats. It was loaded with green cash. So much cash that you could, it was in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC. They got all the cash from all the banks they put it in and they flew it to Iran. I never knew a president had that power.”

Trump also defended "Operation Midnight Hammer," his June 2025 unilateral strikes against Iran, arguing the preemptive action was necessary to prevent the nation from acquiring a nuclear weapon within a month.

“No, I might have forced their hands. You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they [the Iranians] were going to attack first,” Trump was quoted as saying by The Times of Israel. 

“They were going to attack. If we didn't do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that. So if anything, I might have forced Israel's hand. But Israel was ready, and we were ready," he added.