Despite warnings from Republicans in the U.S., Iran signed a $16.6 billion deal for 80 planes from U.S. aircraft maker Boeing, the state news agency IRNA reported Sunday.
The decade-long deal includes 50 Boeing 737s and 30 Boeing 777s, making it largest between the U.S. and Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Last month, the House of Representatives voted to ban U.S. financing of airplane sales to Iran, after Republicans accused President Obama of making concessions to Iran not mandated in the agreement. The Obama administration also issued an export license allowing Airbus to sell more than 100 aircraft to Iran Air, in defiance of GOP warnings that Iran has a history of using these aircraft for military purposes.
The Treasury Department’s decision to allow U.S. banks to finance the sale of Boeing aircraft to Iran, after Treasury Secretary Jack Lew’s initial statement that the U.S. did not have to provide such authorization under the Iran deal, was the impetus for the legislation.
The flow of international funding into Iran in the wake of the nuclear deal has been a source of controversy for more than a year.
“We now have American companies that are saying, ‘You know what, let’s go in and let’s do business with a terrorist regime,'” Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., said last month. “How’s that? Let’s just go make a buck. That’s the scandal of this. The scandal is there are American companies, international companies, Boeing, Airbus, that are now making their own names linked with terror forever more.”
Obama and other western powers agreed to lift economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for the regime’s compliance with restrictions on their nuclear weapons program, making it legally possible for Western companies to do business in the country.
Many corporations have been slow to do business with Iran, leading to worries that the regime will walk away from the pact after failing to receive the anticipated economic benefits.
Joel Gehrke contributed to this report.
