TRUMP DROPS HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT: ‘PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE VERY HAPPY’
Trump Says He Can Let Iran Fail Economically or Hit It Hard - But the June Peace Deal Is Already Broken
Donald Trump says the United States still has several ways to pressure Iran.
The harder question is whether any of them can produce the political outcome he has been seeking since the war began in February.
In an interview with Wayne Allyn Root on Real America's Voice, Trump described a strategy that relies less on a new military offensive than on allowing Iran's economy to deteriorate under sanctions, a naval blockade and restricted access to overseas funds.
"Do what I'm doing now: just bop along and look how bad they're doing," Trump said.
He then summarized the leverage in unusually personal terms.
"I'm their banker," Trump said. "I am their banker."
That line captures the administration's current theory of pressure.
Washington believes Iran is financially weaker than it was before the war and that the United States can make the cost of continued confrontation increasingly difficult for Tehran to sustain.
The economic pressure is real.
The numerical case Trump made for it, however, needs several important qualifications.
Trump said Iran has "300% inflation," that its currency has almost no value, that soldiers are not being paid and that the country cannot borrow money.
Iran is experiencing severe inflation and economic contraction, but 300 percent is not the official inflation rate.
The Iranian government recently reported annual inflation of 88.6 percent, while the International Monetary Fund estimates the country's economy will shrink by about 5.4 percent.
Those numbers still describe an economy under extraordinary strain.
They do not support presenting 300 percent as a verified inflation figure.
Oil offers a clearer measure of the pressure Washington is applying.
The U.S. Treasury Department says average Iranian oil loadings have fallen from roughly 1.8 million barrels per day before the war to less than 500,000 barrels per day over the past month.
That decline matters because oil exports are one of Iran's most important sources of foreign currency.
Sanctions can restrict the banks, companies and third countries willing to handle those revenues.
The U.S. naval blockade adds a physical layer of pressure by making it harder for Iranian ports and tankers to move energy exports.
Together, those tools help explain what Trump means when he says the United States controls Iran's money.
But "total control" is an overstatement if read literally.
The United States can freeze assets subject to its jurisdiction, sanction financial networks and punish third parties that transact with designated Iranian entities.
It does not literally possess or control every Iranian financial asset around the world.
That distinction becomes especially important because money is only one part of the current confrontation.
Trump said he sees three possible strategies.
The first is essentially to continue the current course and allow economic pressure to build.
The second is military escalation.
"Hit them really, really hard," Trump said.
The third, as Trump described it, is to defeat Iran economically.
He immediately acknowledged that the third option overlaps with the first.
That means the interview did not actually describe three fully separate strategies.
It described a spectrum between prolonged economic coercion and renewed large-scale military force.
Diplomacy remains somewhere in between, but it is currently in poor condition.
That is another place where the timeline in the original account needs updating.
The U.S.-Iran war began on Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.
A temporary cease-fire took effect in April and reduced some direct fighting, although violations and disputes began almost immediately.
On June 17, Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian digitally signed a 14-point memorandum of understanding intended to extend the truce and create a 60-day window for negotiating a permanent agreement.
The memorandum was far more ambitious than a simple pause in combat.
It called for an end to military operations, a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the lifting of the U.S. blockade, sanctions relief, the release of frozen Iranian assets and negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.
Iran also agreed that it would not produce or acquire a nuclear weapon and that its highly enriched uranium stockpile would ultimately be addressed under international supervision.
For a brief period, the agreement looked like a possible path out of the war.
It did not hold.
Trump declared the pact "over" on July 7.
Iran's foreign ministry declared it suspended roughly a week later.
The two sides now accuse each other of breaking the agreement.
Washington says Iran failed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as promised.
Tehran says the United States failed to lift the blockade and release frozen Iranian assets.
As of Aug. 12, Reuters reported that there had been no progress in efforts to revive the interim agreement or establish a timetable for carrying out its terms.
Iran's foreign minister has also said direct talks will not resume while Tehran believes Washington is violating the June pact.
Messages are still being exchanged indirectly through mediators including Pakistan and Qatar.
So describing the current situation as a "fragile cease-fire" risks making the conflict sound more stable than it is.
The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, shipping has continued to come under attack and the United States is maintaining military and economic pressure.
The June deal is better understood as a collapsed interim framework that both sides still cite when arguing over what should happen next.
That collapse also complicates Trump's argument that the nuclear problem has already been solved.
"I'm in this thing for one primary reason, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. So now they can't," Trump said.
The first sentence describes the goal Trump says has driven his policy.
The second is a conclusion that cannot be treated as independently established simply because the president stated it.
Iran's nuclear facilities have suffered extensive damage during repeated military strikes, and Tehran agreed in the June memorandum not to build a weapon.
But the fate of Iran's highly enriched uranium stockpile and the long-term verification of its nuclear program were among the issues the two sides still needed to resolve in a permanent agreement.
The June memorandum itself contemplated negotiations and international supervision precisely because those questions were not fully settled.
That makes Trump's statement better understood as his assessment of the military and diplomatic position rather than a completed verification finding.
The broader strategic problem is that every option carries costs.
Continuing economic pressure avoids an immediate new round of major bombing.
It also requires patience.
Sanctions can reduce revenue, weaken a currency and restrict trade without necessarily forcing a government to accept the political terms its adversary demands.
Iran has lived under layers of American sanctions for decades.
The administration's argument is that the war, blockade and current economic crisis have created conditions severe enough to make this round different.
That may prove true.
It has not been demonstrated yet.
A renewed military campaign could impose damage more quickly.
It would also risk widening a conflict that has already affected shipping, energy prices, U.S. weapons stocks and American public opinion.
Those tradeoffs help explain why Trump keeps moving between threats and negotiations.
Throughout the conflict, he has alternated between predicting imminent agreements and warning that Iran could be struck again.
The current emphasis on economic pressure is therefore not necessarily a final strategy.
It is the latest point on a strategy that has repeatedly shifted as battlefield conditions, oil markets and negotiations changed.
Iran is also signaling that it does not intend to concede publicly under pressure.
Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei wrote this week that Iran is in what he called a "strategic, fateful confrontation with Global Arrogance," language traditionally used by the Islamic Republic for the United States and its allies.
That rhetoric does not prove Tehran is unwilling to negotiate.
It does show why economic pain alone may not translate immediately into visible political surrender.
The Strait of Hormuz remains the clearest bargaining point.
Before the war, roughly one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows passed through the waterway.
Iran has used restrictions on the strait as leverage while the United States has used sanctions, military power and the blockade of Iranian ports as counter-leverage.
That creates a negotiation in which each side believes it can impose costs on the other.
It also means neither side has achieved the kind of uncomplicated control suggested by the strongest public rhetoric.
Trump's "I'm their banker" line is effective political shorthand because it emphasizes America's enormous financial power.
The underlying reality is more complicated.
Washington can make Iran substantially poorer.
It can make oil exports harder.
It can freeze assets and threaten foreign banks.
It can also resume large-scale military attacks.
What it cannot guarantee is that any one of those tools will produce a permanent nuclear agreement, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war on terms Washington accepts.
That is why the current debate is not really about whether the United States has options.
It clearly does.
The question is which option can convert American pressure into a durable political settlement without imposing costs that outweigh the result.
Trump's interview settled one point.
For now, he appears willing to let economic pressure do more of the work rather than immediately ordering another major escalation.
What the interview did not settle is whether Tehran is moving closer to accepting his terms.
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The latest reporting suggests the opposite: the June framework remains broken, the Strait remains closed and the two governments still disagree over the basic sequence of concessions required to restart a deal.
That leaves Trump's simplest option - "just bop along" - looking less like the end of the Iran strategy than another attempt to find leverage in a war that still has no settled exit.
