U.S. waives oil sanctions on Iran as nuclear talks advance, but inspection dispute clouds the deal

The Trump administration has given Iran a 60-day opening to sell oil on the global market in U.S. dollars, offering Tehran its biggest sanctions break in years as American and Iranian negotiators try to turn a fragile interim accord into a broader nuclear deal.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued Iran General License X on June 22. The order allows transactions tied to the production, sale, delivery and offloading of Iranian crude, petrochemicals and petroleum products through Aug. 21, 2026. It also allows payments for those sales in U.S. dollar-denominated funds, giving Iran access to the same basic oil-market mechanics that major Gulf producers use.

The move marks a sharp turn from the White House’s own policy earlier this year. In a Feb. 4, 2025 national security memorandum, President Donald Trump ordered officials to review or rescind waivers that gave Iran economic relief and to drive Iranian oil exports to zero. The June waiver does the opposite, at least for now, and shows how far the administration has shifted in pursuit of a wider agreement.

The sanctions relief flows from a 14-point memorandum of understanding that the United States and Iran signed last week. A transcript published by The Associated Press says the two sides gave themselves up to 60 days to negotiate a final deal. The text says Washington will issue waivers for Iranian oil exports and associated banking and shipping services, and it says the United States will make Iran’s frozen or restricted funds available for use under procedures to be worked out in the talks.

Vice President JD Vance, who has led the U.S. side in Switzerland, cast the package as a win for Washington. After talks on June 22, Vance said Iran had agreed to let International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors return. He called that step “a major milestone” and “the first step in permanently denuclearizing or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran.” Reuters also reported that Vance said the talks had set up mechanisms to handle frozen assets, ceasefires and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has disputed key parts of that account. Baghaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, said Tehran had not discussed nuclear details or made new commitments. Bahreini, Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, rejected U.S. claims that Washington or Qatar would control how Iran spends unfrozen money. He said Iran alone would decide how to use its assets. Reuters reported that frozen Iranian assets worth about $12 billion are expected to be released under the initial accord, though the formal MOU text does not attach a public dollar figure.

That disagreement now extends to the inspection issue that Vance has put at the center of the talks. Grossi said on June 24 that inspections will go forward and said the IAEA is working on the “modalities” for access. He pointed to paragraph 8 of the memorandum, which places nuclear activities under IAEA supervision. But Gharibabadi said Iran has no current plan to let inspectors into attacked nuclear facilities or to grant access to nuclear material until a final deal is in place and sanctions relief moves beyond promises.

The argument matters because the most sensitive sites still sit at the heart of the nuclear file. The IAEA said on June 22, 2025 that U.S. airstrikes had hit Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan. Grossi later said the agency had inspected all 13 declared facilities that were not bombed, but could not inspect those 3 key sites. On June 24, he said the IAEA still does not know how much of Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent survived the strikes or where all of it is now stored. He said the agency estimated before the attacks that Iran held 440.9 kilograms of that material, enough for 10 nuclear weapons if enriched further by the IAEA’s measure.

For now, the oil waiver gives both sides an incentive to keep talking. Reuters reported that tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz began to pick up after the latest talks and that oil prices settled 3 percent lower on June 22 after Vance announced progress. Whether the deal grows into a lasting nuclear settlement now depends on the same issues that still divide the two sides: inspections, uranium stockpiles and who controls the economic rewards promised in the first agreement.