Moving from bombing campaigns to economic pressure may ease the military risks for Trump, who says the conflict is necessary to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb, but it is not clear how it will help his Republican Party defend narrow majorities in Congress in November's midterm elections.
Voters continue to oppose the war and fault Trump’s management of the economy. Gasoline prices remain elevated, nearly $1 a gallon higher than a year ago. Trump’s approval rating has fallen from 40% to 33% since the war started, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows, marking the lowest of either of his terms in office.
Trump may be looking for an exit ramp from his detour in Iran. Six months after the conflict began, it is not clear that he controls the route out.
Trump's Iran campaign drags on
Six months ago, President Donald Trump made a decision that has come to define his presidency. His order to join Israel in strikes against Iran launched a military campaign that continues to shape foreign policy, unsettle global markets and saddle Americans with higher gas prices. With no end in sight, the U.S. is now stuck between escalating pressure on Iran or trying to find a face-saving exit.
“I hate to do this.” That’s what Trump says he told his staff when he made the decision to bomb Iran.
“ We’re gonna have to take a little detour down to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and we're gonna have to put out the nuclear weapons,” Trump told an audience in South Carolina last week.
The conflict has become more than a detour. Trump said in March that it could last four to five weeks. As that period was ending, he told my colleague Steve Holland it would be over “pretty quickly.” Weeks have turned into months.
Pressure on Tehran remains, but restraint is visible
Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spent this past week vowing to keep the pressure on Tehran. The U.S. is imposing a “Zero Tolerance policy” on Iranian mines in the Strait of Hormuz and unleashing "economic D-Day" on Iran with new sanctions.
But the rhetoric is more aggressive than the policy. Even as negotiations with Tehran remain stalled, Washington has been stepping back from direct confrontation. Trump has repeatedly threatened large new military assaults on Iran only to back down from those threats. Diplomats are returning to their posts in the region. Bessent's "economic D-Day" was short on punitive action.
The clearest sign of the administration's restraint is what it has not done: target Iran’s biggest buyer of oil, China. If it did, oil prices might rise higher still. Chinese refiners buy Iranian oil, and the country has used its vast market power to keep energy prices in check.
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