Iran is under no obligation to purchase agricultural inputs from the United States, Central Bank of Iran Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati said, responding to comments by US officials, including President Donald Trump, that Iran should buy farm products only from the United States, IBENA reported.

The US proposal is for Iran to purchase agricultural goods, including American soy, corn, and wheat, which would be a big boon for US farmers and could help curb Russian exports to Iran, which have become a mainstay of agricultural imports in recent years. 

The remarks push back against the US framing of how Iranian frozen assets would be spent, after Vice-President JD Vance suggested unfrozen funds would go towards imports. The dispute over the use of released assets is among the unresolved points in a 60-day process to reach a final deal.

Hemmati said the signed memoranda carried no requirement to buy agricultural inputs from the United States.

The basis for using the "first $6bn" rested on the text of an agreement signed in 2023 between Iran and the United States covering essential goods and medicine, Hemmati said.

He said Iran had no objection to buying from the United States if the price and quality of American inputs were more favourable than those of other countries, noting that agriculture ministry purchases in recent years had been made through large American and European companies.

"We need to buy billions of dollars of essential goods and medicine annually, and it makes no difference to us from which source we pay for essential goods," said Hemmati.

He said that if the central bank could make the purchases from its blocked resources, it would replace the depleted reserves with current and future oil revenues, and that what mattered was the central bank's access to its own foreign-currency resources to buy essential goods and medicine.

The remaining blocked funds, meaning the second $6bn and the rest, would not necessarily all be spent on essential goods, and Iran could also buy other non-sanctioned items, Hemmati said.