President Donald Trump said the United States is “low-keying it” with Iran and is “only semi-negotiating” as Washington keeps up maritime pressure in the Strait of Hormuz and weighs economic pressure against Tehran. The result is plain enough for ordinary people to feel at the pump. The average price nationally for a gallon of regular gas was slightly more than $4 on Aug. 10, according to AAA, compared with $2.98 when Trump started the war with airstrikes in late February.
Who Pays for the Power Game
Trump told Axios on Sunday, Aug. 9, that talks on a deal to end the Iran war have slowed. “We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money,” he said. That’s the language of siege dressed up as strategy. The White House is not talking about peace so much as managing pressure, while the people on the ground, and the people buying fuel, absorb the cost.
The Strait of Hormuz carried about a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil trade and a fifth of global liquefied natural gas before the war began in February. Shipping traffic through the strait has dwindled to just eight confirmed crossings last Friday, down 33% from the day before, according to shipping tracker Kpler. The U.S. military has redirected 55 commercial vessels as of Sunday, up from 35 as of Aug. 2, according to U.S. Central Command. American forces have also disabled two ships and boarded two to ensure compliance, the command said. That’s not diplomacy in any neutral sense. It’s coercion with a naval escort.
Trump has said the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports has crippled the country economically, and he told Axios Iran “is in very bad shape” because of it. Oil prices rose Monday, with Brent crude futures up 1.1% to $84.45 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate futures up 1% to $78.98. ING Bank’s Warren Patterson said in a note last Friday that “There doesn’t seem to be much of a compromise, which ultimately makes it more difficult to reach a sustainable deal,” and warned that “Things could go from bad to worse once again.” ING kept its forecast for Brent crude to average $80 a barrel this quarter.
What Tehran Says It Wants
Iran has demanded that the United States meet certain conditions before the Strait of Hormuz reopens. Those conditions include compensation, an end to sanctions, the lifting of the U.S. naval blockade, the withdrawal of American troops from the region and the release of frozen Iranian assets. A senior Iranian official told MS NOW on Monday that Tehran’s position is that Washington must meet all of the conditions Iran says are in the memorandum of understanding the two countries signed in June. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the negotiations with Oman had progressed well and reached their final stage, but he said the deal would not reopen the waterway. Oman said its talks with Tehran were moving in “a positive and constructive atmosphere” and called for a halt to repeated attacks on vessels transiting the strait.
Iranian state media published a draft plan last week that would restrict traffic through Hormuz, bar U.S. and Israeli ships from the strait and require compensation from hostile countries before allowing transit. The plan is under review by Iran’s parliament, according to the state outlet Fars. Tehran would impose penalties on violators equal to 20% of the value of cargo aboard a ship, according to the initial draft. The state machinery on both sides is busy drawing lines, setting fees, and deciding who gets to move and who gets stopped.
Security Councils, Military Men, and the People Below
Iran also appointed Mohsen Rezaei, a military adviser to its new supreme leader, to head the Supreme National Security Council on Sunday. Rezaei commanded Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard from 1981 to 1997 and last week threatened American forces with “serious risks and casualties” if the U.S. did not lift its blockade of Iranian ports. He replaces Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who took the security council role in March after his predecessor was killed by an Israeli strike. Zolghadr will become a political adviser to Khamenei.
President Masoud Pezeshkian said in an interview Monday with Iranian state television that he held a nearly seven-hour meeting with Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, discussing “people’s livelihoods, the state of the market, employment, people’s housing,” as well as “problems that are now being created as a result of the (U.S.) sanctions.” Pezeshkian said Khamenei stressed unity. “All of the enemy’s plans are aimed at creating division,” Pezeshkian said. “What we have to do is prevent divisions from emerging.” He said it was only the second time he had met with the new supreme leader since Khamenei was appointed in March following a U.S.-Israeli strike that killed his father. Khamenei, believed to have been wounded in the same attack, has not appeared in public since then.
Elsewhere in the region, Israel’s military said Monday it had declared the Christian-majority town of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank a closed military zone to keep out Israeli settlers and other non-residents. The order does not apply to Palestinian residents or journalists unless soldiers determine their presence poses a threat. The army said its troops would detain suspects and disperse gatherings to keep the peace. The designation came after months of the army and police struggling to maintain order throughout the territory, where at least 87 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers in 2026, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacked a Red Sea port town controlled by government forces on Sunday, killing seven and injuring 30 people, Yemen’s Defense Ministry said. The ministry said four military personnel and three civilians were killed in the attack on Mokha. The strike was the latest in one of the largest waves of Houthi attacks on Yemeni military positions and areas held by the Saudi-backed government since a 2022 truce. Yemen’s Houthi rebels also claimed responsibility for an attack on an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia and equipment in Yemen’s Red Sea port city of al-Makha. The attacks have renewed focus on the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait as shipping through Hormuz has been restricted.
Trump’s Iran posture comes as domestic political pressure builds at home. CNN said the president is facing two liabilities that could damage his Republican Party in the midterms and his second-term legacy, including the impact of the war on energy prices and a bad jobs report showing the economy lost 23,000 jobs in July. Trump told Punchbowl News, “They’re not angry at me, but they are angry at Republicans.” Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “the overall economy” is “really, really booming,” and said the job losses reflected the end of temporary work from the World Cup finals and teachers taking July off. CNN also said Trump’s approval rating hit 34% in a recent CNN poll conducted by SSRS, matching the career low he saw at the end of his first term, while 73% of U.S. adults said he hasn’t paid attention to the country’s most important problems and 65% said his policies have worsened economic conditions.
The weekend also brought a personnel win for Trump. The Senate narrowly confirmed his former personal lawyer Todd Blanche as U.S. attorney general, and Blanche was sworn in on Monday, according to The Hill. Trump’s administration also saw the failure of his top-priority voting restrictions bill to pass, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected another plan to disarm Hamas in Gaza, according to CNN’s analysis.