After seven weeks of war, Iran’s theocratic rulers are still in power, and President Donald Trump has not gotten everything he wanted from Iran, but for US adversaries and allies, the war has highlighted one of his greatest vulnerabilities: economic pressure.
Even after Iran announced it was allowing shipping through the Strait of Hormuz again, the crisis in the Middle East showed the limits to how much economic pain Donald Trump is willing to endure at home.
Donald Trump aligned with Israel and struck Iran on Feb. 28 after what he described as imminent security threats, including nuclear ambitions.
Now, with US gas prices elevated, inflation climbing and his approval ratings slipping, Trump is scrambling to negotiate a diplomatic deal that might mitigate the domestic impact.
Iran has suffered a military defeat, but has shown it can inflict economic costs that Trump and his aides underestimated, triggering the worst energy shock in modern history, analysts say.
Publicly, Donald Trump has tended to wave off any domestic economic concerns about the war, but he cannot deny that while the US is not reliant on one-fifth of global oil shipments effectively blocked by the Iranian chokehold on the strait, rising energy costs have hurt US consumers.
The threat of a global recession looms large as the International Monetary Fund warns that the risk is real. As Trump and his fellow Republicans in Congress brace for the November midterm elections, pressure for a way out of the unpopular war has mounted.
Iran’s leaders have not been oblivious to this, and they have used their control of the strait to force Trump’s team to the negotiating table.
Many analysts agree that while Donald Trump has shown he is willing to use military force in his second term, he seeks a diplomatic exit ramp as soon as the economic heat at home becomes too much.