WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump, who launched military operations against Iran after asserting that 50 years of economic pressure had failed to curb the country's nuclear ambitions, is now betting that another financial squeeze can bring the conflict to an end.

The Trump administration is counting on months of sustained bombing having pushed Iran's economy to a breaking point, one that could force Tehran's leadership to concede to demands to dismantle its nuclear program and fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil and natural gas tankers.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump said that since Iran is seeking compensation as part of any peace negotiations, he intends to demand the same for the United States. The remarks are part of a broader effort by the president this weekend to portray Iran as being on the verge of financial collapse — despite the fact that the country has already weathered decades of sanctions, a tool that has historically taken years, not weeks, to alter a target nation's behavior.

The rhetorical shift comes as U.S. stockpiles of key munitions have dwindled — a concern compounded by ongoing American military commitments elsewhere, including arms support for Ukraine — and intermittent negotiations appear to have stalled once again. Trump, however, insists the pressure can produce a breakthrough.

"Yeah, they can make trouble, but they're broke," Trump told reporters. "They have no money. You know, Iran is broke, totally broke. And, they're not paying their soldiers. They have inflation of 300%."

Inflation is indeed running high in Iran, though Trump's figures exceeded what administration officials have been citing to reporters. At the same time, the prospect of a protracted war carries inflationary risks for other nations, including the United States, where the conflict and rising gasoline prices have proven politically unpopular.

Crude oil prices rose on Monday as investors interpreted Trump's comments as a signal that fewer ships would be transiting the Strait of Hormuz, continuing to constrain global supplies of gasoline, jet fuel, natural gas, and other energy products. Before the conflict, the waterway — the world's most important oil transit chokepoint, connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea — was responsible for shipping roughly 20 percent of global oil supplies. The Iran war has largely shut it down, and attempts to reopen the strait have been short-lived, as it has become a key piece of leverage for Iran in negotiations.

Iran has shown no public signs of being intimidated by the threat of additional sanctions.

"Whenever Washington proves itself incapable of pursuing diplomacy, it retreats into sanctions; and whenever those sanctions fail to produce results, it simply increases the dose," said Esmaeil Baqaei, spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, in remarks posted on social media. "The real risk is that American politicians, clinging to this bad habit, will instead strangle their own remaining chances of a less humiliating exit from a crisis of their own making."

The White House Strategy: 'Operation Economic Fury'

The president did not specify what additional financial pressure would be applied, but the administration has been engaged since April 16 in what it calls "Operation Economic Fury" against Iran. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has described the initiative as the "financial equivalent" of a bombing campaign, warning that countries purchasing oil from Iran or maintaining banking relationships with it could face sanctions.

One challenge with this strategic pivot, however, is that sanctions are unable to take effect as quickly as the disruption caused by the largely shuttered strait, according to Richard Nephew, a senior research scholar at Columbia University who helped direct Iran sanctions strategy during the Obama administration. Iran has also developed extensive sanctions-evasion networks over years of isolation, including illicit shipping arrangements and informal banking channels, which have historically blunted the impact of new measures.

Nephew stressed that the value of sanctions as a tool is limited because Trump has not articulated clear strategic goals for the war — at times emphasizing that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon, at other points focusing on the strait, and still elsewhere raising the issue of ballistic missiles. Instead, Trump has pursued a massive campaign of aerial assaults that has produced a level of destruction without delivering the swift resolution he initially promised.

"Economic pressure is a possible element in his strategy, but he's yet to explain the purpose," Nephew said. "Trump has systematically weakened his own hand through his inadequate use of force, inarticulate elucidation of an objective, and vacillation on negotiations."

Still, the sanctions regime and the ongoing U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports do provide Washington with economic and financial leverage, according to Juan Zarate, a deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration. Zarate noted that U.S. sanctions threatening third-party countries doing business with Iran also carry weight, though he cautioned that such measures take time to produce results.

"The ultimate question will be how far the United States is willing to go to constrict Iran's oil trade and threaten third countries with severe sanctions — and whether it has the patience to test whether the economic pain will change the regime's behavior," Zarate said.

Past Presidents Used Sanctions. Trump Has Said They Didn't Go Far Enough

Trump's latest pivot to economic measures against Iran represents a notable reversal. The president has long criticized previous administrations for relying on sanctions to limit Iran's economic capacity to fund its military and nuclear development. During his first term, Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the multinational agreement under which Iran had agreed to strict limits on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief — a deal he argued was insufficient and failed to address Iran's ballistic missile program and regional activities.

In a speech last week in Las Vegas, Trump defended the bombing, missile, and drone attacks that commenced on Feb. 28 by arguing that sanctions imposed by prior administrations — dating back to November 1979, when the first U.S. sanctions on Iran were imposed following the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran — had been ineffective.

"It's been 47 years, but really, it's been 50 years because they've been saying 47 for three years, it's been 50 years," Trump said. "And no other president has done what you should have done a long time ago, because Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, can't have it."

The Iranian economy has suffered severely as a result of the war. The International Monetary Fund estimates that the overall economy is contracting by 5.4 percent, and the Iranian government recently reported an annual inflation rate of 88.6 percent. The U.S. Treasury Department said average loadings of Iranian oil have dropped from 1.8 million barrels per day before the war to fewer than 500,000 barrels per day over the past month.

The U.S. economy — the world's largest — has continued to grow, but inflation remains elevated and borrowing costs have risen in ways that have eroded Trump's popularity and fueled public disapproval of the Iran war.

A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss strategy, said the American military has significantly disrupted Iran's ability to produce, sell, and ship oil and other energy resources. The administration views the naval blockade of the strait and sanctions as effective instruments and sees Trump as possessing additional options that can be escalated in the weeks and months ahead.

Trump is essentially arguing that U.S. voters are better positioned to endure any economic inconveniences than Iranians, who have lived under conditions of economic hardship for years.

"It's not just what the military can do — we've got the most powerful economy in the world as well," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday in a joint appearance with Bessent. "And when you've got a motivated treasury secretary who can pull a lot of levers because he knows how to do it, you can put a lot of pressure on adversaries."