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"They Are Choking Like a Stuffed Pig": Trump Vows Months-Long Iran Blockade Until Nuclear Deal as Pentagon Reveals $25 Billion War Cost
In roughly three hours of interviews, private White House meetings, and a Truth Social post featuring an AI-generated image of himself holding a firearm beneath the caption "NO MORE MR. NICE GUY," President Donald Trump this week closed every diplomatic off-ramp that had been cautiously paved since the ceasefire with Iran took effect on 8 April. Speaking to Axios on Tuesday in an interview that ricocheted through global markets, Trump declared that the US naval blockade throttling Iranian ports would remain in place until Tehran agreed to a nuclear deal — and suggested it could persist for months. He dismissed Iran's three-step proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and postpone nuclear talks as a delaying tactic. He summoned oil company and trading house executives to the White House to discuss how to sustain the blockade while minimising the political damage of $4.23-per-gallon petrol. By the time Pentagon comptroller Jay Hurst rose before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday and disclosed — for the first time — that Operation Epic Fury had cost US taxpayers roughly $25 billion and 14 American lives, the architecture of the administration's Iran strategy was laid bare: a high-stakes economic siege designed to achieve through strangulation what eight weeks of bombing could not.
"The blockade is somewhat more effective than the bombing. They are choking like a stuffed pig. And it is going to be worse for them," Trump told Axios, before adding a line that combined threat with theatre: "They can't have a nuclear weapon." When asked about negotiations, the president acknowledged that Tehran had signalled willingness to talk but insisted the terms were unacceptable: "They want to settle. They don't want me to keep the blockade. I don't want to, because I don't want them to have a nuclear weapon." A senior White House official confirmed on Wednesday that Trump had met with representatives of Chevron, Trafigura, Vitol, and Mercuria to explore steps "to continue the current blockade for months if needed and minimize impact on American consumers." The Wall Street Journal, citing US officials, reported that Trump had reached his conclusion at a Monday Situation Room meeting where he weighed three options: resume bombing, walk away, or tighten the blockade. The blockade, he judged, carried the least risk — but also prolongs a conflict that has driven up fuel prices, eroded the president's approval ratings, and darkened Republican prospects in the November midterms.
The $25 Billion War — and the Real Cost That May Be Double
For eight weeks, the Pentagon had declined to put a price tag on Operation Epic Fury. That silence ended on Wednesday in a contentious Capitol Hill hearing that saw Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth castigate lawmakers from both parties who questioned the conflict. Acting Pentagon Comptroller Jules W. Hurst III told the House Armed Services Committee that the war had cost approximately $25 billion, largely on munitions, operations and maintenance. The figure — the first official estimate — was immediately attacked as incomplete. Representative Ro Khanna, the ranking Democrat, noted that the number excluded the cost of repairing extensive damage to US bases hit by Iranian retaliatory strikes, which three sources told CNN could push the real figure closer to $40–50 billion. Economists have placed the broader cost to the US economy — factoring in fuel-price inflation, supply-chain disruption, and lost growth — at between $630 billion and $1 trillion.
The cost in blood has also been disclosed: 14 American service members killed, more than 200 wounded, and at least 3,375 killed on the Iranian side, according to Tehran's health ministry. The US military has redirected 39 vessels in regional waters and captured at least two commercial ships linked to Iran. Hegseth, in his first Capitol Hill appearance since the war began, was unrepentant. "The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of Congressional Democrats and some Republicans," he declared, before requesting a $1.5 trillion defence budget for the 2027 fiscal year — a 42 per cent increase, the largest expansion in military spending since World War II. "The blockade is delivering results far more severe than bombing," Trump told Axios. Hurst, pressed by lawmakers, acknowledged that the $25 billion figure was only an interim estimate and that a formal supplemental budget request would be submitted once a "full assessment" of the conflict's cost was complete.
Iran's Response: "Junk Advice," 41 Stranded Tankers, and a Khamenei Declaration
If the administration had hoped the blockade would produce a swift Iranian capitulation, the response from Tehran this week disabused that notion. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf — the most powerful elected official in Iran's factionalised political system — dismissed Trump's economic pressure campaign as "junk advice," accusing Washington of seeking to destabilise the country internally and force surrender. "They want to activate economic pressure and internal division to make us collapse from within," Ghalibaf said on Wednesday. "We will defeat this deceptive plan." An unidentified senior Iranian security source, quoted by state-owned Press TV, went further, warning that the US naval blockade "will soon be met with practical and unprecedented action."
The economic indicators support neither side's narrative cleanly. US Central Command says 42 ships have been turned back from Iranian ports. Independent data shows 41 tankers carrying 69 million barrels of Iranian oil — valued at more than $6 billion — are stranded and unable to sell. Analytics firm Kpler estimates that Iran's oil storage capacity may exhaust within 12 to 22 days, after which the country would face large-scale well shutdowns that could permanently damage production infrastructure. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has led the administration's economic pressure campaign, posted on X that "Iran's creaking oil industry is starting to shut in production" — a claim that, if true, represents a significant strategic victory but also raises the stakes for a regime that has historically proven willing to endure immense economic pain rather than capitulate.
In the most symbolically freighted moment of the week, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — who assumed the role after his father, Ali Khamenei, was killed in the initial US-Israeli strikes of 28 February — issued a statement marking Persian Gulf National Day that framed the blockade not as a crisis but as a catalyst. "The bright future of the Gulf will be one without the US presence," Khamenei declared, adding that "foreigners who greedily commit malicious actions in the region will have no place in it, except at the bottom of its waters." He praised Iran's naval forces for their "fortitude, vigilance, and struggles" over 40 days of war and asserted that a "new chapter" in the management of the Strait of Hormuz was taking shape — one that would "eliminate the hostile enemy's abuses" and deliver economic benefits to all regional nations. The address, broadcast on state television, was greeted by tens of thousands of Iranians who rallied in coastal cities to mark the occasion. As one analyst noted, "Khamenei is not speaking to Washington. He is speaking to his own population and to the Gulf states, offering a vision of a post-American regional order. It is a negotiating position dressed as prophecy."
Oil Markets, the Hormuz Chokepoint, and the Spectre of $140 a Barrel
The economic machinery of the crisis is grinding with increasing force. Brent crude surged past $119 per barrel on Wednesday — its highest level in four years — before pulling back toward $110 on Thursday. West Texas Intermediate rose to $109.64. The near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil supply normally passes, has reduced daily transits to near zero. The International Energy Agency has described the conflict as the biggest supply shock in history. Vitol Group, the world's largest independent oil trader, estimates the market is facing a supply loss of about one billion barrels — roughly equivalent to three months of global pre-war consumption.
Within the US, the domestic price of petrol has surpassed $4.22 per gallon — up from less than $3 before the war — and 40 per cent higher than pre-conflict levels. That single statistic may explain more about the administration's political predicament than any Pentagon briefing. The president's approval rating has softened, and Republican strategists are increasingly alarmed about the electoral implications of a protracted standoff that offers no clear exit. The UNDP has warned that the war could push more than 30 million people into poverty across 160 countries as surging fuel and fertiliser costs cascade through fragile economies. And in Iran, the currency has hit record lows, citizens are expressing deepening frustration, and the window for a negotiated settlement — never wide — appears to be narrowing by the day. The Iranian parliament speaker warned that "junk advice" pushing for continued economic pressure could drive oil to $140 per barrel.
What Comes Next: Between a Blockade and a Hard Place
The core diplomatic question — whether Iran's nuclear programme can be verifiably dismantled through negotiations conducted under the shadow of a blockade — remains unanswered, and increasingly, unasked. Tehran has insisted that lifting the siege is a precondition for returning to talks; Washington has insisted that the siege is the only leverage it has to compel Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Both positions are logically coherent and mutually exclusive. The Islamabad talks of 11–12 April, mediated by Pakistan, collapsed precisely because neither side would yield on sequencing: Iran's three-step proposal — reopen the Strait, lift the blockade, then discuss the nuclear file — was rejected by Trump as evidence that Tehran was not negotiating in good faith. "The blockade is delivering results far more severe than bombing," Trump said. "Iran must never be allowed to possess nuclear weapons."
Military planners, meanwhile, are preparing for the possibility that the blockade alone will not suffice. US Central Command has reportedly drawn up plans for a "short and powerful" wave of strikes — a contingency that, if activated, would shatter the fragile ceasefire and plunge the region back into open conflict. The Pentagon has also requested approval to deploy the Dark Eagle hypersonic missile system to the Middle East, a deployment that would represent a significant escalation of US military posture in the region. According to Axios, three sources confirmed that Trump is aware of the strike plan but has not yet authorised it, preferring for now to let the blockade do its work. A senior US official described the administration's position with startling candour: the conflict, now entering its third month, may end with neither a nuclear deal nor a resumption of the war — but with a prolonged, grinding standoff that satisfies no one.
A Standoff Without an Exit
The US-Iran crisis has entered a new and more dangerous phase — not because the shooting has resumed, but because both sides have now defined positions that make resuming it more likely than resolving it. Trump has told aides, oil executives, and the American public that the blockade will remain for months. Tehran has told its people — and the world — that it will not negotiate under siege. The Strait of Hormuz, which once carried 13 million barrels of crude per day, has become the world's most expensive maritime parking lot. And the $25 billion the Pentagon has spent so far is merely the military component of a cost that economists say is already approaching — depending on the methodology — somewhere between $630 billion and $1 trillion. These are not the numbers of a quick war or a clean exit. They are the arithmetic of a protracted crisis, and the world is only beginning to count the cost.
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