Iran’s frozen assets, one of the issues in their proposed peace settlement, are estimated to actually be north of $100 billion. This estimate includes funds in the U.S., assets restricted abroad, oil revenues in escrow, and central bank reserves blocked due to U.S. secondary sanctions.
The $6 billion portion in Qatar that is being mentioned in various reports is just the tip of the iceberg. It was supposed to have been returned to Iran in 2023. It is simply funds from Iranian oil sales to South Korea, frozen in 2018 and held in South Korean banks since the first-term President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions. In September 2023, the U.S. agreed to return the $6 billion as part of a U.S.-Iran prisoner swap mediated by Doha. (Even then, Iran’s money was limited to only being used for paying U.S. Treasury-approved vendors.) However, a month later, after Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023 attack, Biden’s administration refroze the money, claiming that Washington retained the right to fully block the funds.
