How Much Money Could Iran Make from the Iran Deal? The Number Will Stun You.

$150 billion in sanctions relief. $1.7 billion in pallets of cash.

Those are figures commonly cited by critics of the Iran nuclear deal, including President Trump. But what the figure that isn’t getting as much as attention that the deal allows Iran to cash in on up to $1 trillion over the next 10 years.

No, that is not a typo.

Israeli Ambassador to United States Ron Dermer told conservative radio host Mark Levin on April 30 that the $150 billion that Iran is receiving in unfrozen assets from the deal is only a “signing bonus” in the deal.

“The big money of the Iranian deal is that now they’re free to sell a lot more oil,” Dermer said. “When the sanctions were on Iran five years ago – before the deal was signed – they were only selling about a million barrels a day. After the deal was made, Iran now is already beyond 2.5 million barrels a day.”

Between their increase in oil sales and the price of oil now higher than $70 per barrel, the regime in Tehran is poised to receive gobs of cash in their coffers.

“That’s $100 million a day. That’s $3 billion a month. That’s over $35 billion a year,” Dermer said, noting that’s assuming that Iran’s oil output remains at 2.5 million barrels a day. With increasing investment, their oil output could reach back to a prior level of four million barrels per day.

“You could have Iran getting not 35, maybe 60, maybe $100 billion depending on the price of oil every single year,” Dermer said, “and over a 10-year-period you’re talking about a trillion dollars to go to a regime that has killed hundreds of Americans that leads masses of people in chants of ‘Death of America’ and is the greatest threat to peace and security in the world today.”

There is evidence to back up Dermer’s claim, as in June 2016 a McKinsey Global Institute report stated that Iran’s economy received “widespread attention” after the Iran deal was forged, and as a result economic could reach $1 trillion in a decade.

“We find that Iran has the potential to add $1 trillion to GDP and create nine million jobs by 2035,” the report states. “If it is to realize this potential, Iran will have to put in place key enablers of rapid growth, including measures to increase the attractiveness of the country to foreign investors, ensure macroeconomic stability, strengthen and deepen its financial system and its international connectivity, raise productivity, and upgrade its industrial infrastructure.”

Valiollah Seif, who heads Iran’s Central Bank, told Iran’s Financial Tribune in September 2017 that Iran could “attract more than $3.5 trillion worth of investments over the next two decades.”

And yet, Iran’s economy is in dire straits, as “prices have climbed more than 10 percent a year, unemployment hovers north of 12 percent, and having a job is no guarantee that one gets paid,” according to Commentary’s Sohrab Ahmari. Iran’s defense budget, on the other hand, has increased by 145 percent during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s reign, putting credence to Dermer’s statement earlier in the interview that the Iranian regime is using the windfall in cash toward their “war machine” in the Middle East. This would explain why labor strikes have permeated throughout Iran on the heels of December’s anti-regime protests.

Trump is set to announce on May 8 whether or not the U.S. will exit from the Iran deal. If he does announce the U.S.’s exit from the deal, it could be a significant strike against a regime that appears to be hanging on a thread.

The full interview can be heard below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mSoQw70CjI