President Donald Trump repeated a misleading claim about Iran’s military budget Saturday, saying it had increased by more than 40 percent since the negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal.
“In the years since the deal was reached, Iran’s military budget has grown by almost 40 percent, while its economy is doing very badly,” Trump said during the speech.
In a fact check of that remark, The New York Times deemed the claim “exaggerated.” Citing data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the newspaper explained that Iranian military spending has increased by only about 30 percent from 2015, the year the Iran deal was reached, to last year.
The Washington Post also relied on data from the institute in looking into the President’s claim and likewise reported an increase in Iranian military expenditures of “nearly 30 percent” from 2015 to last year.
The Post’s analysis notes that “just looking at the raw increase or decrease in any country’s military budget misses important context.” Iranian military spending “increased alongside overall government spending — not in a silo on its own,” the newspaper goes on to say, adding that “the nuclear accord has contributed to the overall increase in spending — including the increase in military spending — since it lifted sanctions and allowed for a rise in oil production and exports.”
