America just proposed a fund to make Iran's biggest weapon irrelevant
22 September 2026 · 22 September 2026Share
A commercial oil tanker readies itself to receive oil at Mina-Al-Bkar Oil terminal, an offshore Iraqi oil installation. File photo. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 1st Class Kevin H. Tierney. · Public domain
America just put a number on containing Iran. $5 billion.
The Trump administration wants to build a new fund to rebuild Middle East energy sites damaged in the war with Iran. And to cut the region's reliance on the Strait of Hormuz.
The Wall Street Journal broke this a few hours ago. It says it saw officials and documents. Nobody else has confirmed it yet.
So here's the plan. Eight countries get asked to match the $5 billion. Saudi Arabia. The UAE. Qatar. Bahrain. Kuwait. Oman. Iraq. Jordan.
All eight match it, and you get $10 billion. It already has a name. The Partnership for Allied Trust and Construction. Pact, for short.
Who runs it? The Development Finance Corporation. A US agency that normally backs poorer countries, not oil-rich Gulf states. That alone tells you how unusual this is.
And here's the thing. Nobody has actually confirmed any of this.
Reuters says it could not verify the report. There's no statement from Donald Trump. None from the White House, the Treasury, or the State Department. None from any of the eight countries either.
US officials told the Journal that talks are still going. The terms could still change. Nobody has said whether the eight countries have actually agreed to pay in. Or how much.
So what's this really about? Some Middle Eastern officials gave the Journal their own read.
They say Washington wants to make Hormuz look less important. And to show Iran a united front.
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Contains modified MODIS imagery from NASA GSFC showing the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. File photo. MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC · Public domain
But they also flagged a problem. Building this before there's a peace deal with Iran could be premature. Because Iran might just bomb the new infrastructure once it's built.
That's not a small worry. This war has run seven months. It started at the end of February, and it hasn't stopped.
A ceasefire deal between the US and Iran fell apart in July, just a month after it was signed. Iran's Revolutionary Guard said this week the war isn't over. It says it's ready for a long fight.
There's another fund people might confuse this with. A $300 billion plan to rebuild Iran itself, floated back when that ceasefire deal was signed. That's a completely different proposal, for a completely different country. Don't mix them up.
And the region this fund would help isn't calm right now either.
Houthi forces just took the port city of Mokha. And key islands in the Red Sea. That tightens their grip on Bab el-Mandeb, a second chokepoint for oil and gas that has nothing to do with Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia has been hit so hard that Britain just agreed to help. Prime Minister Andy Burnham sent air-to-air refuelling support this week, at Saudi Arabia's request.
How much would it actually cost to fix all this damage? Officials and energy experts put it at tens of billions of dollars. Even a full $10 billion fund only covers a slice of that.
So where does that leave the plan? It has a name. A target number. A list of eight countries invited to pay.
What it doesn't have: a single confirmed pledge, a start date, a list of projects, or any sign Iran will stop attacking whatever gets built.
Nothing here was paid for by an advertiser. Members are the entire business model. This story is Silver's: it opens everything we have ever written, and our investigations first.
