The Trump administration is counting on economic strangulation to bring Iran to its knees.

After six months of intermittent bombing and unsuccessful attempts at negotiation, Washington has changed course: cutting Iran off from the rest of the world rather than sending ground troops. A strategy that the international press considers risky and vaguely defined.

The pivot is complete. Rather than pursuing a military option that would entail deploying American troops on Iranian soil, the Trump administration has opted for maximum economic pressure against Tehran. The stated objective: to financially strangle the mullahs' regime by cutting it off from global markets.

But the most immediate obstacle is Beijing. China absorbs a considerable share of Iranian oil, and Xi Jinping is expected in Washington next month for a summit. If the Chinese president does not make a firm commitment to reduce his purchases of Iranian hydrocarbons, the American threat will remain a dead letter. Furthermore, sanctions have never been a reliable tool for regime change: their full implementation is difficult to guarantee, and Iran has spent decades perfecting ways to circumvent them.

Charles Lichfield, an expert at the Atlantic Council, sums up the ambiguity of the approach: “This option seems to have been chosen by default. This administration has an extraordinary ability to strengthen its faith in the latest measure found. If something doesn't work, they move on to something else, relying on their own conviction.” He points out that Donald Trump himself doubted, upon his return to power, the effectiveness of the sanctions imposed on Russia under Joe Biden.

This doctrinal flexibility does not preclude a return to the military option, particularly if Iran, under economic pressure, were to choose to provoke further disruptions in the energy market to increase the political cost of American pressure.

Donald Trump, for his part, displays unwavering confidence: “They don’t have money. They don’t have a navy. They don’t have an air force. They don’t pay their soldiers. They don’t pay their police. They have 350% inflation. So, we’ll just see what happens.” The International Monetary Fund, meanwhile, forecasts inflation of around 70% in Iran by 2026, a figure that reflects the collapse of the national currency. But no recent example shows a repressive regime crumbling under economic pressure alone.

On the Iranian side, however, signs of concern are multiplying. On Friday, President Massoud Pezeshkian declared that "the war must eventually end," while acknowledging the country's economic difficulties. The day before, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Speaker of Parliament and Iran's chief negotiator, had warned: "No matter how strong our military, if the population suffers from hunger and we lack liquidity, economic growth, and domestic production, we will not be able to survive."

Washington is not in a position of strength either. Since the start of hostilities, gasoline prices have risen in the United States, ammunition stockpiles have dwindled, and Tehran now exercises control over the Strait of Hormuz that it did not previously possess. With a crucial election just months away, the chances of the situation improving significantly appear, according to the Swiss daily Le Temps, "virtually nonexistent."