Iran has called for a staggering $1 trillion in compensation from the United States, citing decades of alleged damages and unjust sanctions. This bold demand highlights escalating tensions between the two nations.
A senior official in Tehran has stated that the US owes Iran a trillion dollars for decades of economic sanctions and accused Washington of supporting terrorism.
During a speech on Saturday, Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, accused the US-led West—referred to as the “Arrogant Front”—of attempting “to use various tactics in their own hybrid war” to destabilize the country.
The official stated that “the Americans themselves openly admit to having created [the terrorist groups] ISIS and Al-Qaeda” with the aim of causing a division between Iran and its neighbors, while also safeguarding their ally, Israel, who is Tehran’s main adversary.
Shamkhani criticized the US sanctions imposed on Iran, which were initially introduced following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He stated that “Americans should compensate Iran with a trillion dollars for hindering our country’s progress over the past 25 years.”
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Since the Islamic Revolution, the United States has repeatedly implemented economic sanctions on Iran and labeled it as a “state sponsor of terrorism.” A significant thaw in relations occurred in 2015 when Tehran consented to limit its nuclear program for partial sanction relief. However, in 2018, the Trump administration withdrew from this agreement unilaterally and reinstated sanctions affecting Iran’s oil industry and finances.
In 2021, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the former Iranian Foreign Minister, stated that U.S. sanctions had caused $1 trillion in damage to Iran’s economy and insisted on compensation from Washington as a condition for re-entering the nuclear deal.
Shamkhani’s remarks follow a December 2023 ruling by an Iranian court, which determined that the U.S. government—encompassing the Department of Defense, President-elect Donald Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, along with the National Security Agency and CIA—must compensate nearly $50 billion for their involvement in Qasem Soleimani’s assassination in 2020. The court also mandated a public apology to over 3,000 Iranian citizens who initiated the lawsuit regarding Iran’s Quds Force leader’s killing.
