President Donald Trump declared that US military strikes against Iran will continue indefinitely, following a wave of Iranian ballistic missile attacks targeting American forces stationed across the Middle East. The strikes hit US bases in Jordan, Bahrain, and Kuwait in mid-July 2026, though Jordanian forces intercepted at least three to five incoming missiles with no reported US casualties.
The US Treasury has frozen over $130 million in digital assets tied to Iran’s central bank, and Washington has started designating major Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges under counterterrorism authorities.
The military escalation
Trump’s statement on July 15, 2026 left little room for diplomatic interpretation. The president said US strikes on Iran would persist until he personally decided otherwise, going so far as to threaten extending operations to civilian infrastructure if diplomatic agreements weren’t reached.
The confrontation traces back to earlier in 2026, with Iranian missile strikes dating to March and coordinated US-Israeli military actions forming the backbone of what has become a sustained armed conflict. A brief window of hope opened in June 2026, when an interim peace deal aimed at de-escalating hostilities was negotiated. That deal collapsed, and the July strikes represent the sharpest escalation since.
