During a rally in Rochester, New York, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump publicly declared his plan to outwit Iran.
He began by noting that the US handed over Iran's frozen assets following last year's nuclear deal, yet the Islamic Republic was not able to spend that money in the US because of Washington's sanctions against Tehran.
"Now I think that prohibition is great," Trump said. "But when we hand them $150 billion, we should take the prohibition off for a little while, don't you think? Let them buy from Rochester, New York. We don't care if they're from Iran, right?"
Acknowledging the danger posed by Iranian missiles, he suggested that the US purposely give them faulty weapons. "We'll sell them missiles that don't work correctly, right? Let them sue us. Tell them to sue us. Oh, I'm sorry they don't work. Gee, that's too bad. We'll take in about $12 billion for missiles and they'll say these missiles are terrible. And I'll say, 'Yup, that was the purpose of it.'"
The comments were recorded by CBS reporter Sopan Deb.
Now that he has admitted his intention to take billions of dollars from Iran without giving them anything functional in return, it remains unclear how he would convince Tehran to agree to such a deal.
Trump also did not mention the fact that, only a few months ago, the US ended a protracted lawsuit with Iran over a $400 million arms contract that Washington suspended following the 1979 Iranian revolution. The US ultimately paid back the $400 million plus an additional $1.3 billion in interest.