President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth salute as an Army carry team moves a transfer case containing the remains of Pvt. Isabella Gonzales of Carrollton, Texas, July 22, 2026.Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
The Trump administration is back on the warpath. Over the weekend, the government resumed military attacks on Iran for the first time in a month, which in turn prompted retaliatory Iranian strikes against the United Arab Emirates and American bases in Jordan. On Monday, Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst said the president told him that “there will be a US response” to the Iranian attack on US forces in Jordan.
Which is all to say that Iran, thanks in part to economic support from China, isn’t backing down.
The Trump administration also signaled that it may ramp up economic sanctions on Iran this week, seeking to make good on promises of an “economic D-Day” against the country: “This is going to be financial violence if we have to,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the Associated Press on Sunday.
On Monday, Iranian leadership joined an economic summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, whose largest members are China and Russia, in a meeting that many American outlets have characterized as adverse to US interests China has been Iran’s economic bulwark during the current war, defying US sanctions by remaining the main importer of Iranian oil.
While struggling to fight Iran on multiple fronts—through Bessent’s “financial violence” in the form of severe economic sanctions—and the conventional violence of deadly military action against both the country’s civilian infrastructure and combat forces, the US has achieved little in terms of forcing Iran’s leadership to budge on negotiations.
We’ve seen this play out again, and again, and again in the months since Trump dragged the U.S. into war with Iran.
In response to an exclusive from the Washington Post citing classified documents in which top US military officials state the current war in Iran is depleting their ability to defend the country from other threats, Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesperson, claimed that publishing the report was “a crime”—it is not—and evidence of “TDS and PDS”—Trump and Pete Derangement Syndrome, respectively.
Even as it scrabbles for new tactics—and publicly appears at a loss—the Trump administration continues to deny that its war isn’t working.
But as Bessent himself said Monday of Canada’s claim that it was weathering Washington’s trade war: “What else are they gonna say?”