US and Iranian presidents sign deal aiming to end war

Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz, an Iran hawk in Congress, questioned the $300bn fund for Iran.

“Giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is not a good idea,” Cruz told reporters. “I think the president, unfortunately, is receiving bad advice.”

Earlier on Wednesday, US officials held a media briefing, where they read out the text verbatim from the memo and denied the US was required to pay “a cent of money” to Iran under the $300bn fund.

As a hypothetical example, one official said that if Iran “behaves”, Emirati authorities could build a power plant in Iran, with US blessing.

At the G7 summit, Trump said reports that the US would give Iran money under the fund were a “fake story”.

“We don’t give them money,” he says. “We don’t give them any of that.”

But he also said Iranian assets frozen during the war should be returned.

“It’s not our money, it’s their money, and we froze it,” Trump said. “At a certain point in time, I guess we’re going to have to give it back.”

He has previously railed against former US President Barack Obama for unfreezing $1.7bn in Iranian assets, including interest, under a 2015 nuclear agreement with the country. Trump scrapped the Obama era deal during his first term in the White House.

Democrats, meanwhile, were withering in their assessment of Trump’s plan.

New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen told the BBC that it was “a very bad deal” and did not address issues such as Iran’s support for regional proxies, like the militant group Hezbollah, or its missile programme.

“It’s not accomplished any of the aims that President Trump laid out at the start of the war,” she said.