The war is six months old on Friday, and Donald Trump will spend the day in Houston honoring the Artemis II crew. Whether he says anything about Iran is unclear. The “little excursion” he promised would last a matter of weeks has cost the United States more than $37.5 billion and dented his standing with voters ahead of November’s elections for his party.
This week he made the new line plain. He is “not in a hurry” to bring Iran back to the table.
“They’re not paying their troops. They’re in deep trouble. They have very little capacity,” Trump told reporters on Thursday. “We don’t want to speak to them. We’re not looking to meet or anything.”
From bombs to sanctions
His administration said it will now lean on economic pressure instead of military action, threatening to punish any country or company that keeps doing business with Tehran. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled the campaign, which the White House calls “Operation Economic Outcast.” So far it consists of warnings. No secondary sanctions have been announced, and Bessent said he wanted countries to have time to move away from Iran, while conceding the plan carries economic risk for the US too.
Munitions are part of the picture. After months of fighting, stockpiles are thinner, and there is concern that a long war could weaken American readiness elsewhere.
China, Iran’s biggest trading partner and oil buyer, objected to what it called “illegal unilateral sanctions.” Asked why he was not already sanctioning Chinese banks, Trump gave no answer. “Who said I’m not? You don’t know if I’m doing it,” he said. “I don’t have to announce everything, do I?”
What the blockade has and hasn’t done
Trump says a US naval blockade is keeping Iranian oil off the market. “We have control and we have the blockade,” he said. “Iran is not getting anything. Nothing is going through.”
The Strait of Hormuz tells a more mixed story. Iran has used its own strikes there to gain leverage, and few tankers are willing to make the passage. Trump again said the strait is open and put Wednesday’s traffic at 24 vessels. About 130 used to cross each day before the war.
Iranian officials say the country has suffered $270 billion in direct and indirect damage. Israeli strikes in the first weeks wiped out much of the government’s leadership, including Supreme Leader Khamenei.
Mediators and critics
Qatar and Pakistan keep pressing for a way out. Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, was in Tehran on Thursday to discuss an Iran-Oman plan to increase shipping through the strait. Trump has shown little appetite for the preliminary deal reached in June, which was meant to reopen the strait and start nuclear talks. It collapsed within weeks after Iran began attacking ships.
Aarathi Krishnan, a geopolitical risk analyst at RAKSHA Intelligence Future, thinks Trump is misreading the opponent. Iran has spent decades adapting to sanctions, she said, selling discounted oil and building opaque shipping and financial networks. “This administration has completely underestimated the Iranian resolve,” she said.
Richard Goldberg, who advised on Iran at the National Security Council in Trump’s first term and now works at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wants the opposite: more pressure. He called for layering “a naval blockade with an air and land embargo” and coming down hard on anyone who gives Tehran hard currency, “whether that’s in the Middle East, China or even Europe.”
Trump also shared an AI-generated image this week captioned “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED 2026.” It showed him in front of fighter jets and a warship above smaller pictures of George W. Bush and Khamenei. Bush was widely mocked for his 2003 “Mission Accomplished” banner speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, and the Iraq war ran nearly nine more years. Trump rejects comparisons with Iraq and Afghanistan, where more than 7,000 Americans were killed. No US troops have gone into Iran.
