{"id":42316,"date":"2026-08-13T04:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T23:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=42316"},"modified":"2026-08-13T04:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T23:00:10","slug":"trump-leans-on-naval-blockade-sanctions-to-force-irans-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=42316","title":{"rendered":"Trump leans on naval blockade, sanctions to force Iran&#8217;s hand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/trumpdonald_080726nk07_w.jpg?w=900\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\n        <iframe id=\"instaread_iframe\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Audio Article\" style=\"display:block\" data-pin-nopin=\"true\"><\/iframe>\n    <\/p>\n<p><\/instaread-player><\/p>\n<p>President Trump\u2019s efforts to bring the Iran war to an end have faltered several times.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. military\u2019s limited airstrike campaign did not move the needle. Trump\u2019s threats to wipe Iran off the face of the earth didn\u2019t either.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr1_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Every time there appears to be a breakthrough in diplomatic talks, a wrench gets thrown in the mix, halting progress.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Now the president is turning his focus on economic warfare, leaning on crippling sanctions and a U.S. naval blockade to force Iranians to the table in hopes of reopening the Strait of Hormuz.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Regional experts who spoke with The Hill said the Trump administration might not get what it wants out of the efforts, some panning the strategy, while others argued it is the only hand Washington has left to play.<\/p>\n<p>William Wechsler, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism, said the U.S. going back to war with Iran would have \u201csignificant risks,\u201d but also doing any deal along the lines of the memorandum of understanding that the two sides signed in June would be a \u201cdisaster.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe only option that the president has now is to do the option that he\u2019s done, which is just to try to buy time on this,\u201d Wechsler said Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Wechsler, who is now a senior director of the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council, said despite the U.S. naval blockade, Iranians are asserting their control over the Strait of Hormuz to eventually start charging tolls to generate revenue, believing they can outlast the U.S. since they are fundamentally not a democracy and Trump is under more pressure because of upcoming elections.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr2_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Still, the White House believes that Iran\u2019s economy is severely damaged with rising inflation, reduced energy revenues, an uptick in poverty and limited access to foreign currencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The naval blockade has produced results. During its first iteration, which lasted from April 13 to June 18, the U.S. blockade has cost Iran around $4.8 billion in oil revenue, a Pentagon assessment found, The Hill\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/defense\/5860339-pentagon-estimates-iran-blockade-cost\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><u>reported<\/u><\/a>\u00a0in May.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Wechsler said his concern about the administration\u2019s strategy is that Trump succeeds if he can win domestic battles with the \u201cart of persuasion,\u201d while the regime led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has another tool in the tool shed apart from \u201cpersuasion.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr3_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cThey have guns that they can use against their people, and typically, people who have guns and are willing to use them against their people, it takes a longer time for them to lose,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Janatan Sayeh, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), said the administration is being \u201creactive,\u201d while earlier in the war it was being \u201cproactive.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow, the mindset here is one way or another, building leverage or pressure is going to get behavior change, and that in itself I think might be a miscalculation, given that we\u2019ve seen how the Islamic Republic works. They would sabotage the entire country before compromising,\u201d Sayeh said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr4_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>But Sayeh noted that additional pressure from the U.S. creates avenues that could allow openings for a two-track strategy: one targeting Iranian regime insiders who are unhappy with leadership and another spurring massive protests inside the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf there\u2019s going to be uprisings again, what is the strategy to one way or another support this momentum that would be as a direct consequence of the maximum pressure campaign and the economy building up? So if you\u2019re really pushing the country towards that avenue, how are you going to react to it would be two pillars, and I currently don\u2019t see an avenue for him to capitalize on each,\u201d he said in an interview with The Hill on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Ruhe, a Jewish Institute for National Security of America\u2019s (JINSA) Fellow for American Strategy, argued the U.S. is going with the strategy to strangle the Iranian economy, depriving it of funds to pay soldiers and keeping the repressive apparatus of the regime alive, because the administration has \u201crun out of other options\u201d and it marks \u201can admission of failure\u201d that does not have \u201cany real prospects for success.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr5_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cThe Iranian regime is more than happy for Trump to focus just on sanctions and blockade. They certainly feel they can ride that out, and their clock in that sense, has more time on it than Trump\u2019s own clock,\u201d Ruhe said in an interview.<\/p>\n<p>Sayeh, an FDD analyst who was born in Iran, said blockades and sanctions take time to set in, and it will be up to the administration to outlast the economic impact that Tehran is going to impose on the president politically.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s more so the Islamic Republic retaliating by throttling the Strait of Hormuz in response to the blockade, and therefore raising oil prices once again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr6_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Trump claimed on Wednesday that the U.S. has \u201ctotal control\u201d over the Strait of Hormuz, adding, \u201cI THINK WE WILL KEEP IT!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur Naval Blockade is being called, by everyone, \u2018A WALL OF STEEL,\u2019 and there is nothing Iran can do about it. They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, their remaining soldiers are unpaid, the IRGC is decimated and fleeing, and their \u2018Leadership\u2019 is uncertain, at best,\u201d the president wrote in a post on Truth Social.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have No Money \u2013 Their country is \u2018shot.\u2019 All they have is FAKE NEWS and 300 percent INFLATION, and getting worse! Iran is all talk and no action, the Bully of the Middle East No Longer,\u201d Trump said. \u201cPraise be to Allah!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr7_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Iran\u2019s Persian Gulf Strait Authority\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PGSA_IRAN\/status\/2087610756518846642?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><u>fired back<\/u><\/a>\u00a0on Wednesday, saying claims and posts by U.S. officials that the waterway is \u201cno longer blocked do not change the reality: the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked and will not be reopened until Iran\u2019s conditions are accepted.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has increased slightly this week, with 14 successful crossings on Tuesday,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Kpler\/status\/2087490122275058022?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><u>according<\/u><\/a>\u00a0to maritime trafficking firm Kpler. Eleven of the 14 ships used the route closer to Iran\u2019s coast. But the figures are far below the pre-war numbers, which average north of 100 ship crossings a day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Iran is choking off traffic in the waterway, through which around one-fifth of the world\u2019s oil and gas flow during peacetime, through occasional use of missiles and one-way attack drones to hit transiting ships in the strait, making captains and shipping companies second-guess their decisions to transit through.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr8_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Ruhe, of JINSA, said reopening the Strait of Hormuz militarily is what the U.S. might have to do at this point, noting that Trump has been reluctant to run those risks, sticking with the approach of issuing new sanctions, enforcing the blockade and U.S. Central Command (Centcom) conducting airstrikes in recent weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI talked to a lot of U.S. Navy guys, and including people whose job it was to think about what to do in this scenario and carry it out, and they say you know the U.S. has to be willing to run some risks to deal with this problem, given that you know the current costs of having Iran close the Strait and think that it\u2019s ultimately up to Tehran whether the Strait is open or closed,\u201d Ruhe said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The fragile ceasefire fizzled out in early July with Iran striking commercial vessels in and around the strait. The president then authorized airstrikes that targeted Iranian military command centers, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defense sites and maritime capabilities in the southern part of the country.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr9_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>After those U.S. strikes, Iran retaliated against U.S. allies in the Gulf, which indicates that Tehran thinks it can absorb damage, believing it is more expensive for Centcom to conduct the strikes than for the regime to rebuild the damaged sites, according to Sayeh.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey don\u2019t mind losing lower-level personnel. They redeploy them,\u201d he said, adding that he can see Trump going back to those types of attacks as a \u201ctit-for-tat measure, just to maintain the dynamic as it is, so Iran doesn\u2019t think it has the upper hand.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. military has continued to enforce the blockade in the Arabian Sea. The U.S. Navy MH-60 helicopter\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/defense\/6023263-us-military-disables-panama-tanker-strait-of-hormuz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><u>fired two Hellfire missiles into the steering area<\/u><\/a>\u00a0of a Panama-flagged M\/V Vela Nova, disabling the vessel that attempted to transit the Gulf of Oman in violation of the blockade after its\u00a0civilian crew ignored repeated warnings from U.S. forces.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr10_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>The U.S. forces in the region have redirected 59 commercial ships that have attempted to run the blockade, disabled three and boarded another two vessels since resuming the blockade in mid-July, U.S. Central Command said in an update on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The blockade is enforced by more than 20 Navy ships and the U.S. has far more than 50,000 service members stationed in the Centcom theater.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Wechsler, of the Atlantic Council, said that Trump, going forward, should do three things: First, say he will keep at least one aircraft carrier strike group and all of the assorted weaponry in the region for the remainder of his term. Then, declare that all of the U.S. military outposts in the Gulf, including in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and others, which have sustained damage, should be fully restaffed, rebuilt, hardened, and rearmed.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr11_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>The third thing would be for the U.S. and all of its allies and partners that are arms exporters to figure out how to accelerate arms shipments to U.S. friends in the Gulf.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf he does all three of these things, then he\u2019s starting to get down to the turns,\u201d Wechsler said. \u201cBut the fascinating thing to me is he\u2019s done none of these things.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Trump\u2019s efforts to bring the Iran war to an end have faltered several times. The U.S. military\u2019s limited airstrike campaign did not move the needle. Trump\u2019s threats to wipe Iran off the face of the earth didn\u2019t either. Every time there appears to be a breakthrough in diplomatic talks, a wrench gets thrown in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/trumpdonald_080726nk07_w.jpg?w=1280","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}