Biden’s $6 Billion Iran Hostage Deal a ‘Blistering Humiliation’: Trump

Joe Biden (L) and Donald Trump. Illustration by The Epoch Times/Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump has slammed the Biden administration’s decision to pay Iran $6 billion in exchange for releasing five American hostages.

The $6 billion will come from Iranian assets that are currently held in South Korea. Amid the emerging agreement, four prisoners have been shifted from prison to house arrest. The fifth person was already confined at home. In a video released Thursday, President Trump blasted Biden, calling the monetary payment in exchange for hostages “yet another Biden surrender and a further blistering humiliation of the United States of America to the world stage.”

“But even worse, this decision will be extremely deadly. Biden is giving $6 billion to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism … Biden’s ransom payment will be immediately used to stoke violence, bloodshed, and mayhem throughout the Middle East and all around the world, costing countless innocent lives,” he warned.

President Trump said that the ransom payments make it “dramatically more likely” that Iran will target even more Americans as hostages in the future, as the administration has shown that they are willing to pay money in exchange. This would mean that kidnapping Americans will enable criminals to make “massive profit.”

“In other words, Biden has put a bounty on the head of every American citizen abroad.”

President Trump pointed out that under his leadership, over 50 American hostages were brought back home from across the world without paying any ransom.

“We did it with diplomacy and we did it through strength and we will do it again when we are reelected as president of the United States.”

The former president also highlighted the possibility that the “fanatical Iranian regime” would use the $6 billion payment it receives to advance the country’s nuclear weapons program. This would put the United States, Israel, and the entire world in “very grave peril.”

“They are reportedly just weeks away from a nuclear bomb, something which would have never happened under the Trump Administration,” he said.

“Our country is failing. We are a failing nation. We will turn it around and we will make America great again.”

Transferring Billions

Since 2019, around $7 billion in Iranian funds have been kept in two South Korean banks after the United States placed sanctions on Tehran. Over the past years, $1 billion has been lost to currency devaluation. It is the remaining $6 billion that is being transferred to Iran as part of the hostage deal.

Iran’s central bank governor Mohammadreza Farzin said that the funds in South Korea have been released, according to IRNA, Tehran’s official news agency. A third country has accepted to convert the funds to euros, which would then be deposited into six Iranian accounts in Qatar.

An Iranian woman walks past a giant poster showing supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (R) and the founder of Iran's Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (L), in a suburb of Tehran, on Feb. 1, 2015. Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

U.S. leaders insist that once the funds are in Qatar, they will be held in restricted accounts and can only be used for humanitarian purposes like buying food and medicine. However, some people in Iran have disputed the claims and insist that Tehran will have complete control over it, according to AP.

In addition to the release of $6 billion, the United States will also release an unknown number of Iranian prisoners held in America.

Human rights activists have slammed the deal.

“The Biden administration has given the Islamic Regime a $6 billion cash lifeline, enabling them to continue funding terrorism and oppressing the people of Iran. The blood of the Iranian people is on Biden’s hands,” Sarah Raviani, an Iranian-American human rights advocate, said in an Aug. 10 tweet.

“Biden has authorized the largest ransom payment in American history to the Mullahs in Tehran,” GOP’s 2024 presidential candidate Mike Pence said in an Aug. 11 post at X.

On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that the hostage deal would not mean that Iran would be getting any relief from existing American sanctions.

Iran’s Hostage Diplomacy

Iran has been engaging in hostage diplomacy tactics for some time. A May 31 post at Stimson, a non-profit think tank, explains that Tehran has seen a shift in its hostage diplomacy over the years.

The post, written by researchers who looked at Iran’s hostage diplomacy tactics, states that Iran has “transitioned from being an opportunistic actor to using hostage diplomacy as a strategic foreign policy tool.”

Earlier, Iran used individuals arrested for domestic political reasons in negotiations. But now, the country has taken a more strategic approach, seeking out foreign or dual-born nationals to arrest them and extract concessions from their home nations.

Foreign or dual nationals are also being kept for a longer period of time, thereby complicating the negotiation process for their release.

Researchers speculate that Tehran’s shift in hostage-taking behavior was likely triggered due to the concessions it obtained in the initial phase.

“While countries such as Russia and China are also increasingly taking Americans hostage, Iran remains the foremost practitioner of hostage diplomacy. Iran has seen the success of this practice and consequently is likely to continue engaging in it.”