The Iran War Could Be Trump’s Greatest Foreign-Policy Failure

Amid the pomp and pageantry in Beijing last week, U.S. President Donald Trump had hoped he could get Chinese President Xi Jinping to broker a peace deal between Washington and Tehran. It didn’t happen. China likely wants the war to end, too—as do most countries not named Russia. But Iran’s new leaders seem to be enjoying a game of chicken in which their opponent has long made it clear that he wants to chicken out.

Tehran is reading the same headlines we all are. And the evidence just keeps on growing that this war is disastrous for Trump. At this point, no matter how it ends, the pain for Trump, for the United States, and for the entire global economy will go on for some time. To what end?

Amid the pomp and pageantry in Beijing last week, U.S. President Donald Trump had hoped he could get Chinese President Xi Jinping to broker a peace deal between Washington and Tehran. It didn’t happen. China likely wants the war to end, too—as do most countries not named Russia. But Iran’s new leaders seem to be enjoying a game of chicken in which their opponent has long made it clear that he wants to chicken out.

Tehran is reading the same headlines we all are. And the evidence just keeps on growing that this war is disastrous for Trump. At this point, no matter how it ends, the pain for Trump, for the United States, and for the entire global economy will go on for some time. To what end?

Let’s start with what attacking Iran achieved. Key leaders, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, were killed. Iran’s air force and navy were decimated, and its ability to launch missiles was degraded. That’s where the gains end. The regime is still in place, with a younger and more vengeful new leader. A damning report from the New York Times, based on U.S. intelligence assessments, revealed that Iran still has 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile, 70 percent of its mobile launchers, and operational access to more than 90 percent of its missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz. That final detail means that Iran can continue to disrupt traffic through the world’s most vital energy chokepoint at any point in the future. Tehran can also still attack Israel and U.S. allies in the Gulf with missiles. And, most strikingly, Iran still has a stash of highly enriched uranium. If one goal of the war was to ensure that Tehran could never develop a nuclear bomb, that objective has simply not been met.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Defense Department is counting its losses. An investigation by the Washington Post found that Iran has damaged 217 structures at 15 U.S. military sites in the Middle East. CNN reported that at least nine U.S. bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar were “significantly damaged” by Iranian strikes. Rebuilding these resources will take years and cost billions of dollars. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the United States expended between half and 60 percent of its Patriot defense missiles—more than Ukraine has used in four years of war with Russia—and a third of its Tomahawk missiles in engaging Iran during the hot phase of the ongoing war. Leaving aside the costs, both types of munitions take up to four years to manufacture and replace. If the United States were called into action in another arena—defending Taiwan, for example—it would go into battle sharply diminished. And don’t forget the loss of life. At least 13 U.S. service members have died in the fighting so far, and more than 400 have been injured. Their families can only be asking why.

It almost feels churlish here to discuss soft-power costs, but it’s worth considering that waging a war without domestic or international consensus leaves the White House with less room to cite norms or rules when it wants to chide another power for starting a war. The United States has normalized ordering the execution of another world leader.

Then there’s the energy crisis. The price of gasoline in the United States is up by nearly half since this time last year. Diesel, which is used by commercial vehicles, is up by 59 percent. The obvious reason is the war; the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has constrained a previously oversupplied market. As I’ve written previously, the pain is even more acute in Europe and Asia. Countries such as Pakistan and the Philippines have ordered public offices to reduce their workweeks and shut down universities to conserve energy. Even India, the world’s fifth-largest economy, requested its 1.4 billion citizens last week to reduce their usage of fuel and stop panic-buying gold. Bad as all of this is, the worst is yet to come. Energy prices would have risen far higher by now were it not for the United States ramping up oil exports and drawing on its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. China, which is experiencing a period of reduced internal demand, has also been using up its immense cache of petroleum. If Washington cuts exports or if Beijing were to start dipping into the market instead of its reserves, prices could spiral upward. As always, smaller economies will suffer the most.

Other commodities are also experiencing severe shortages, with a range of ripple effects in store for the world. In addition to ferrying a fifth of the world’s crude and natural gas in normal times, the Strait of Hormuz is also responsible for a fifth of the world’s supply of fertilizer and a third of its helium. A global food crisis and a shortage of semiconductors, which rely on helium, is already baked into economists’ projections for the next year. The longer the crisis drags on, the higher the costs.

Global growth is already faltering. In April, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its forecast for growth from 3.4 percent to 3.1 percent. A fresh projection today would likely merit an additional cut of a third of a percentage point. The IMF expects growth to fall to 2 percent by next year if energy supplies do not return to normal, a scenario that feels increasingly likely. To put this eventuality in perspective, the world has grown by less than 2 percent only four times since 1980. The world has experienced a global recession only twice since 1950, during the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. If the Iran war took its place among these two unforeseen shocks, it would represent an own goal of historic proportions for Trump and the United States.

Consider also the cost to U.S. alliances. Trump asked NATO allies in Europe to help the White House forcibly reopen and de-mine the Strait of Hormuz. Upon realizing that no help would be forthcoming, he denied ever requesting assistance. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, not known for his candor, has said the United States was being “humiliated” by Iran, enraging Trump and worsening an already fraught relationship. In the Gulf, countries that invited the United States to build military bases on their soil are now wondering why they willingly put a target on their backs. Qatar, for example, will take several years to return to its pre-war output of natural gas; its economy is projected to contract by 8.6 percent this year. Asian allies, with limited ability to withstand shocks, are questioning whether the United States is a rogue actor on the world stage. But U.S. adversaries see the war differently. China is likely pleased at how overstretched and weakened the U.S. military has become. And Russia has emerged as the clear winner of the conflict, doubling its monthly oil revenues since the start of the war.

Doubling down on the war remains an option that Trump has publicly contemplated. But it would come with even more uncertain benefits than before—and much more potential pain. As for how to get out of this, diplomacy is preferable but begs the question: Why start the war in the first place? This leads us back to Trump’s summit with Xi last week. If you were Beijing’s leader, would you want to interrupt your primary long-term competitor as they make a catastrophic mistake? I don’t think so.