What’s behind Trump’s shift to economic pressure on Iran? Will it work?

Published 10 August 2026 · world

Months into the war, Trump is returning to squeezing Iran’s economy rather than military offensive for now. More than 23 weeks into the war on

Months into the war, Trump is returning to squeezing Iran’s economy rather than military offensive for now. 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, as he had warned he might last week. 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 tightens its grip on Iranian ports. While Iran and Oman have said they are close to reaching an agreement on the management of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said the US is “only semi-negotiating” with Iran. Tehran has denied direct talks at all with Washington. So after months of expansive fighting, why is Trump turning to economic pressure over military force in this conflict? What has Trump said about changing strategy? “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. He said Iran is in “very bad shape” financially, citing high inflation and difficulty paying its own soldiers, and credited a US naval blockade in place since April with increasing that pressure. “We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money,” he said. 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.” What effect has the US naval blockade had on Iran?

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 to Iran’s existing economic woes, linked to domestic structural issues and mismanagement, topped off by years of harsh sanctions. 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 losses as one of the conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Is the US short on munitions? 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 shortage of air defence interceptors could hamper the US ability to protect its forces and allies in the Middle East. The Pentagon has asked the US defence industry to rapidly escalate the production and delivery of weapons, including munitions in extremely short supply due to the war with Iran, The Washington Post reported, citing a Department of Defense memo. 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 principal deputy director at the Defense Department’s Defense Innovation Unit, told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview. “The department has everything it needs today to execute a war.” Is Trump under pressure at home over this war? Trump began his second term in the White House at the beginning of last year promising to avoid “stupid wars”.