President Donald Trump has paused the Iran strikes for a third night in a row, with the United States saying the move is meant to give diplomacy more space as tensions remain high across the Gulf. The pause comes after nearly two weeks of daily American strikes and back-and-forth attacks that have strained an already fragile ceasefire reached in June.
US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said on Fox News that the president was giving talks room to breathe. He made clear, though, that the White House is not ruling out further action. In separate comments to NBC, Waltz said he would not go so far as to say Trump had decided against escalation, and added that all options remain open. On CBS, he said additional military assets are moving into the region.
Waltz also pushed back on a New York Times report that administration officials had warned the fighting could drain a reduced stockpile of air defense munitions. He said the US military has what it needs to carry out the campaign. Trump himself had not spoken publicly about the latest turn by Monday, but he did post computer-generated images on Truth Social showing US military planes bombing Iranian ships and Kharg island.
Iran signaled its own pause on Sunday. An Iranian army spokesperson said Tehran had halted retaliatory attacks in the region in response to the US move. The latest pause follows 13 straight nights of US strikes aimed, Washington says, at weakening Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important energy corridors.
The Iran conflict has also fed directly into global markets. Oil prices fell sharply after the pause, dropping below $90 a barrel on Monday morning after reaching $100 for the first time since May last week. That slide followed a stretch of renewed fighting that had already rattled worries about supplies moving through the strait and wider energy flows around the world.
