Fresh US strikes triggered air defences in Tehran on Wednesday after US President Donald Trump warned he was "not finished" with a war with Iran that has already cost his nation $37.5 billion. After the foes' fighting over the strategic Strait of Hormuz led to the collapse of a preliminary deal, the Middle East war has expanded to include the region's other key chokepoint for global oil supplies. Still, top US diplomat Marco Rubio reiterated Washington's statement that it is willing to use diplomacy to find an agreement with Tehran. "The problem we are currently facing is that they are not taking the negotiations seriously," Rubio said at a Southeast Asia ministers' meeting in Manila.
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Cover image: Un pont endommagé par une frappe américaine sur la route reliant Roudan à Bandar Abbas, dans le sud de l'Iran, samedi 18 juillet 2026. © Amir Hossein Khorgooei, AFP
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei has said that diplomatic exchanges with Washington through mediators were continuing. "News sources reported minutes ago that air defence activity was heard in the west, east and northeast of Tehran," state TV posted on Telegram. As the war nears the five-month mark and November legislative elections approach, Trump has faced intense political pressure to end the conflict, which is unpopular even with segments of his base. Critics have pointed to the cost of the war that Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth said Tuesday had soared to $37.5 billion, defending a request for tens of billions in additional funding for the military. The US military said Tuesday it had launched an eleventh consecutive night of strikes against Iran, saying it targeted military sites to "further degrade Iran's ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz". Trump had said earlier that the next US target could be an underground complex known as Pickaxe Mountain, a subterranean nuclear site near Natanz where Western intelligence suspects Iran is building an undeclared enrichment facility.
