President Donald Trump speaks on the day he signs an executive order on quantum computing, June 22, 2026, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
President Donald Trump hedged Monday when asked if he could guarantee Iran would not use profits from oil sales to rebuild its military after the U.S. war with Israel.
President Trump said the money would be used to buy U.S. agricultural products.
However, Iran’s central banker said Iran has no obligation to buy agricultural products from the United States.
“Well, they’re not going to do that, so we’ll see,” Trump told CNBC’s Eamon Javers, when asked at the White House during an executive order signing event if he could guarantee Iran would not use the oil money for that purpose.
“But they’re supposed to be spending money to buy food for the people, because right now the people are so hungry and they’re buying exclusively corn and soybeans from us,” Trump said.
“It should be a lot of money,” he said. “I hope it makes a lot of money.”
Trump also said that Iranian funds, which have been unfrozen as part of a memorandum of understanding between the two countries, “are going to be used to buy food, and that food will be bought exclusively through the United States from our farmers, and everything we need, like corn and soybeans, will be bought from our farmers.”
“So our farmers are very happy,” Trump said.
President Trump’s response came hours after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent approved imports of Iranian oil and refined products into the United States through at least August, building on productive peace negotiations between the Islamic Republic and the United States in Switzerland.
Last Thursday, the US Navy lifted a blockade of Iranian ports and coastal areas, which had significantly reduced the amount of Iranian oil being loaded for export since April.
“There is no obligation to purchase agricultural inputs from the United States,” Iran’s central bank governor Abdulnasser Hemmati told Iranian news agency Tasnim on Monday, according to the newspaper.
“Based on the memorandum signed, there is no obligation to purchase agricultural inputs from the United States,” Hemmati said, according to Tasnim news agency.
Hemmati also reportedly said that there is no barrier to buying American products if their prices and quality are better compared to products from other countries.
“We need to buy billions of dollars worth of essential goods and medicine every year, but it doesn’t matter to us where we pay for these essential goods,” he said, according to the Tasnim news agency.
