More than 23 weeks into the war on Iran, United States President Donald Trump has signalled he would rather rely on squeezing Tehran’s economy than returning to a military offensive, a prospect he had warned of just last week. The shift marks a notable tactical pivot as the conflict enters a protracted phase, moving away from the immediate threat of catastrophic strikes.
Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway now central to negotiations aimed at ending the war, remains disrupted by Iranian forces as a US naval blockade continues to tighten around the country. While Iran and Oman have indicated they are nearing an agreement on the management of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump maintained that the US is “only semi-negotiating” with the Iranian leadership.
“We are low-keying it,” Trump told the news website Axios in an interview on Sunday regarding the US approach to the war on Iran. This signals a complete change from his comments last week when he gave “duplicitous” Iran “one last chance” to make a deal or suffer catastrophic strikes. Now, Trump said, he wants to hit Iran economically instead, betting that financial collapse will achieve what military force has yet to secure.
He stated that Iran is in “very bad shape” financially, citing high inflation and difficulty paying its own soldiers. He credited a US naval blockade, in place since April, with increasing that pressure significantly. “We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money,” he said, suggesting that time is now on the side of the United States.
Trump also claimed that falling prices of oil, which was trading at about $78 a barrel on Monday, have eased the economic impact on US consumers of the war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which had sent oil prices above $100 a barrel for a time. “It will work out. It always works out. It’s like a chess game,” he said.
Speaking about the war on Iran on Saturday, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News: “We’re in the middle of the game, and we’re applying a whole host of tools – diplomatic, economic, military tools – to ensure that we get the best outcome for the American people.” The administration continues to frame the conflict as a multifaceted struggle requiring patience and strategic application of pressure.
The US has maintained a naval blockade against Iranian ports since mid-April. The aim is to reduce Iran’s oil exports – estimated at about 1.5 million barrels per day – and thereby significantly decrease its oil revenues. On Saturday, the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) reported redirecting 53 commercial vessels, boarding two, and disabling two others.
Trump described this as an unyielding “wall of steel.” Iranian authorities have attested to near-zero crude exports due to the blockade. The oil export constraints are adding immense pressure to a domestic economy already reeling from the broader effects of the war. Iran’s infrastructure has also suffered significant damage during the war launched by the US and Israel in late February. Tehran has asked the US to compensate it for these damages, a demand that has been met with silence from Washington.
Several US media reports have indicated that Washington is running low on munition stockpiles due to the fighting in the Middle East and Ukraine. At the end of last month, Axios reported that the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, had cautioned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump that a prolonged military campaign could strain existing inventories. The Pentagon has asked the US defence industry to rapidly escalate the production and delivery of weapons, including munitions in extremely short supply.
However, a Pentagon official on Saturday told Al Jazeera that the US has enough munitions to sustain its military operations. “We have sufficient munitions for the task at hand,” Jarred Conley, the Deputy Director, Maritime at the Defense Innovation Unit, told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview. This reassurance comes as the administration attempts to balance its military commitments across multiple theaters.
Mehran Kamrava, a professor of government, expressed skepticism that US economic pressure would prove effective, particularly as Iran’s leaders are not under the same internal political pressure as the Trump administration. “It’s not that people making decisions directly care about the plight of the middle classes,” he said. “They want to stay in power, so I’m not sure if this tactic is going to work at this point.”
The US and Israel have shifted the goalposts considerably since launching the war on February 28, the day they killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. At the outset, the US said the war was about restricting Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, which Tehran said it was never intending to do, and forcing a change in Iran’s government, which Trump has quietly dropped since. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) that Iran and the US signed on June 17 to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and begin a 60-day negotiation period unravelled within days, mainly over disagreements about the management of the strait.
Trump began his second term in the White House at the beginning of last year promising to avoid “stupid wars.” As the conflict with Iran continues into its sixth month, the administration is clearly struggling to reconcile its initial campaign promises with the reality of an entrenched, high-stakes military and economic confrontation.
“The department has everything it needs today to execute a war.”
Only about 35 percent of Americans approve of the war, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll suggested.
Asked which political party has a better approach to handling war and “terrorism”, registered voters picked Democrats over Republicans – 37 percent to 36 percent.
Tehran has denied direct talks at all with Washington.
The oil export constraints are adding to Iran’s existing economic woes, linked to domestic structural issues and mismanagement, topped off by years of harsh sanctions.
Currently, his war on Iran is unpopular in the US, where the president and his fellow Republicans are seeking to defend their narrow congressional majorities in November’s midterm elections.
This is the first time Democrats have led since Reuters/Ipsos polling began posing the question in December 2024 when Republicans led 39 percent to Democrats’ 28 percent.
He noted that Iran has been able to exert considerable pressure on Gulf countries where US military assets and infrastructure are located by attacking them with missiles and drones.
“What we have seen is that the Iranians are trying to put economic pressure on the regional neighbours, particularly on countries like Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, so that they would in turn put pressure on the US to negotiate with Iran,” he said.
… So neither side is willing to take that first step and extend an arm and say, ‘Let’s sit down and negotiate,’” he said.
The US also made other demands, including restricting Iran’s ballistic missiles programme and ending its support for Iran-aligned armed groups around the region, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and others in Iraq and Syria.
As the war has continued, the cost to Gulf countries and the global energy crisis unleashed by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have put pressure on Washington to reach a peace deal with Iran.
While the MoU did mention the eventual lifting of US sanctions on Iran and a reconstruction fund for Iran, it did not specifically cover US demands about Iran’s ballistic missile programme or regional armed proxy groups.
It also appeared to show the US had given up any hope of forcing regime change in Iran.
Source: Aljazeera
