For a U.S. leader famous for his bombastic, high-profile approach to global affairs, Donald Trump’s newest strategy on Iran marks a striking departure. The American president has confirmed he is prioritizing sweeping economic sanctions over direct military strikes or high-stakes diplomatic negotiations, leaning on financial pressure to weaken Iran’s position amid the ongoing regional conflict.
“We are low-keying it,” Trump told news outlet Axios in a phone interview Sunday. “We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money.” Though the president has repeatedly insisted he is keeping all options on the table—including the possibility of targeted military action against Tehran—he has centered his public messaging on the deep economic harm U.S. sanctions have inflicted on the Islamic Republic.
Speaking from the Oval Office Monday, Trump claimed “Iran is broke, totally broke and they’re not paying their soldiers.” In a recent post to his Truth Social platform Wednesday, he doubled down on assertions that Iran’s annual inflation rate has surged past 300 percent. He also argued there is no immediate need for military intervention, asserting that the U.S. maintains “total control” over the Strait of Hormuz—the critical global oil shipping chokepoint that has emerged as the central flashpoint in U.S.-Iran tensions during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Independent experts broadly agree that U.S. sanctions have taken a heavy toll on Iran’s economy, even if they dispute some of Trump’s more dramatic claims. “Iran is in terrible shape economically. It can’t ship oil at any meaningful level. And it still labors under sanctions and still can’t access its overseas assets,” explained Michael O’Hanlon, a senior foreign policy expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. “The question is, do its leaders really care? I think they care some, but not a lot.”
The shift to a low-key sanctions-focused approach marks a notable change for Trump, who just weeks ago threatened to launch the most devastating military strikes against Iran since World War II. For the past five months, as the Israel-Gaza conflict has drawn in regional actors, Trump has alternated between apocalyptic threats of military action and vague promises of imminent diplomatic breakthroughs. Now, he appears to have put both on hold.
At the end of July, the Trump administration rolled out new sanctions targeting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the ideological backbone of Iran’s military apparatus. According to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, Trump’s national security advisors have presented him with detailed data on the impact of existing sanctions, and the president is currently weighing both tightening current restrictions and imposing new, stricter measures.
Analysts suggest the strategic shift also reflects growing constraints on U.S. military capabilities. Multiple U.S. media outlets have reported that American conventional munitions stockpiles have been severely depleted after months of resupplying Israel and supporting ongoing operations in the Middle East, leaving fewer military options ready for immediate deployment against Iran.
Iranian officials have dismissed Trump’s new sanctions push as a sign of U.S. weakness. “Whenever Washington proves itself incapable of pursuing diplomacy it retreats into sanctions; and whenever those sanctions fail to produce results, it simply increases the dose,” Esmaeil Baqaei, spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, wrote in a post on X this week. Baqaei noted that Iran has withstood decades of U.S. sanctions, adding that the new pressure campaign “strangle their own remaining chances of a less humiliating exit from a crisis of their own making.” Responding to Trump’s comparison of the conflict to a chess match, Baqaei told reporters “Iranians have shown they are professional chess players.”
The biggest open question remains whether Trump—an notoriously impulsive leader known for preferring the spectacle of high-profile confrontation and flashy policy wins over slow, incremental pressure—will stick to this new long-term strategy.