Vahid Online in English

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18 Jun 2026, 15:33

Start of the speech by J.D. Vance, Vice President of the United States:

🔸Last night, 12.5 million barrels of oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz. This is the highest level since the conflict began.

🔸For the second consecutive night, the Iranians did not fire at any ships in the Strait of Hormuz. So far, they have adhered to their commitment. CENTCOM has allowed twelve ships to pass through our maritime blockade, so we are also fulfilling our commitment.

🔸You will hear things about $300 billion or $24 billion, or this or that number or amount of money, and the simple reality is that the only way the Iranians can access any of these resources — not even a cent, under any circumstances, from the United States — is if they are completely compliant and change their behavior.

If the Iranians do not change their behavior, their military and nuclear program will continue to be destroyed; if they do change their behavior, then they will have a transformative relationship with the Middle East. This is a win-win for us.

🔸There are real divisions in Iran. What we have seen is that pragmatists are winning the debate.

🔸I have seen people who doubt this agreement — individuals saying the Iranians will never change their behavior. Well, maybe that’s true, and if so, they will gain none of the benefits of this deal. But isn’t it worth trying?

🔸I say the 60-day period officially starts today. So yes, the agreement started yesterday — we will start the 60-day clock today.

🔸All the President said yesterday is that, of course, countries do not give up their right to self-defense. Israel does not give up its right to self-defense if Hezbollah fires rockets or drones at Israel. The Iranians do not give up their right to self-defense in their country, but we expect that as part of the final agreement, they will not be able to build missiles that can broadly threaten the entire world, and that is what the President of the United States said yesterday. And look, it’s very simple: you cannot tell a country — whether Israel or Iran — that it does not have the right to self-defense.

🔸Reporter: President Trump said yesterday that if this round of negotiations fails, he will blame you. Are you worried he will hold you responsible? J.D. Vance: No, not at all. I think the President was joking, as he often does.

🔸J.D. Vance on the Strait of Hormuz: We never want this to happen again, right? This is not about tariffs. It’s about ensuring that straits are never used as a choke point for the global economy. Frankly, this is not something the Iranians want.

🔸J.D. Vance on lifting sanctions: Frankly, we did not see this as a big concession to the Iranians — Iran... did not see this as a concession to them, because what was preventing their oil sales was not the sanctions. They were selling a lot of oil without any discounts because the sanctions were essentially ineffective. At that time, what the sanctions did was shift Iran’s financial system somewhat to a shadow banking system. By lifting the sanctions, we will actually be able to see a bit where their financial system sends money and where it receives it. This is a real advantage.

🔸What I say to some of the critics of the agreement I’ve heard, those who say, “Well, Iran will gain all these benefits.” I repeat what I’ve said and probably should repeat several times: What advantage do the Iranians gain that they did not have before? And the answer is none. They gain nothing unless they change their behavior. If they change their behavior, that is something to celebrate.

🔸No one can ignore the right of self-defense of another country — Israel has the right to defend itself. But fundamentally, Israelis, just like everyone else, must respect this peace process that is fundamentally beneficial for them and the entire region.

🔸In criticism of Israel: It seems we are right on the verge of a major breakthrough in the agreement, and suddenly there is a big explosion in a civilian population center in Beirut, and many people who have no connection to Hezbollah lose their lives. This is unacceptable.

🔸The Obama nuclear agreement allowed enrichment — our agreement does not allow that. The Obama agreement allowed the accumulation of weapon-grade materials; our agreement actually leads to the destruction of that stockpile of enriched materials. The Obama agreement gave them over a billion dollars of American money; this agreement gives them no American dollars.

🔸They have made very specific nuclear commitments. They have committed to destroying the highly enriched stockpile they possess. But the second point, the only thing we have done is lift the blockade in the strait — which essentially returns it to the state it was in before the conflict.

🔸Ladies and gentlemen, words do not matter; we are talking about verifying accuracy.

🔸Let’s assume — two years from now, they have done what we need to see in the nuclear program and we lift the sanctions according to the agreement. Then they decide to rebuild the nuclear program. Of course, in that case, those sanctions will come back. And that’s why this is really like a reset button: the more they increase their good behavior, the more we can increase economic incentives; if they decrease their good behavior, we can cut it off.

🔸What really happened is that we signed the memorandum of understanding on Sunday. This established the terms of the agreement. The Iranians came to us and said, “We would like to not publish the text until Friday.” I really didn’t understand this — I wanted to publish the text immediately. But to accommodate them, we said, “Okay, we will wait until Friday.” And then during Monday and Tuesday, while the President was at the G7 meeting, perhaps foreign leaders were talking to the Iranians and encouraging them to do this. We certainly told them: “We understand your desire not to publish the text until Friday, but you know we live in a democratic system. The American people want to see the text of this agreement. We would certainly like to publish it as soon as possible.” And so they decided for their President to sign it, for our President to sign it, and then to immediately publish the text as a signed document.

🔸To think that selling a few million dollars of oil is going to fundamentally change the Iranian economy is not correct.

🔸Regarding blocked funds, the amount of money — frankly, I don’t know. I’ve heard numbers over $100 billion. In fact, I’ve heard numbers over $200 billion as well. Most of it is not in U.S. accounts; most of it is either in the Persian Gulf, or in Europe, or somewhere else. But I don’t know the exact amount of money — it’s a lot.

🔸I have seen reports — I don’t know where this came from — that the Qataris have released billions of dollars and Iranian assets. This is not true at all. It is impossible for the Qataris to do this without our agreement, and certainly without us seeing it.

🔸About Iranian missiles: Their ability to launch missiles has significantly decreased. Has this ability gone to zero? No. But it has significantly decreased. We have not abandoned that mission. We have accomplished it.

🔸Thank God. I’m glad the Pope has said positive things about our memorandum.

🔸What we are saying is that we are returning forces to the pre-conflict level; we do not intend to keep a few extra aircraft carrier groups there. The Iranians do not want this; frankly, we do not want this either.

🔸Reporter: Who is financing that $300 billion fund for Iran? J.D. Vance: There is a lot of willingness from the Arab world and even outside the Arab world that if Iran behaves properly, they will really get involved.

🔸Have a little faith in the President’s ability, given that he has brought us this far, he can take us to the final step.

🔸Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the world at this moment who has sympathy for the nation of Israel. If I were in the Israeli government, I might not attack the only powerful ally I have around the world.

🔸In the past three months, two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected Israel have been made by American hands and paid for with American taxes. The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump, and anyone in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the President of the United States needs to wake up and understand the reality of their country’s situation.

🔸Reporter: What prevents Iran from rebuilding and resuming its nuclear program in the future? J.D. Vance: First of all, they need to make a lot of money to be able to rebuild their nuclear program. c-span

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