Trump's war goal with Iran has shifted from 'unconditional surrender' to 'as long as the Strait of Hormuz reopens, the U.S. can declare victory.' The *Wall Street Journal* reported today that Trump has privately told senior aides that as long as Iran is willing to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, even if no nuclear deal is reached with Iran in the end, he is willing to end the war and use the reopening of the strait as a symbol of U.S. victory. This is a major shift. It also shows that Trump's hardline stance against Iran has had little effect. When the war started in March, Trump publicly stated that the U.S. would not make any deals with Iran unless Iran surrendered unconditionally. But now, the U.S. has been continuously retreating from its core goals. The nuclear issue has been sidelined, and the Strait of Hormuz has become Trump's most pressing concern. If the war drags on, the U.S. will need to continue investing military resources, and the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed to normal navigation. Gas prices and inflation pressures in the U.S. will be hard to truly reduce, especially with the midterm elections less than three months away. If the U.S. is still facing high inflation and high gas prices before the midterms, the Federal Reserve will undoubtedly blame the U.S.-Iran war for these issues. So, based on Trump's current thinking, as long as Iran is willing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. will have an opportunity to find a way to declare victory domestically. But the problem is, Iran clearly sees what the U.S. needs most right now. The latest conditions proposed by Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, include the U.S. permanently ending the war, lifting the naval blockade, withdrawing troops from the region, removing sanctions, unfreezing Iran's overseas assets, paying war reparations, and stopping military actions against Iran's regional allies. In other words, it's no longer the U.S. demanding Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a ceasefire, but Iran using the strait as leverage to demand increasingly high political and economic costs from the U.S. Of course, the U.S. still has the capability to continue attacking Iran, but as I've said before, Iran is a theocratic state, not a country like Venezuela. Maybe the U.S. can eventually win, but the time and cost required might not be something the current U.S. administration and the Republican Party are willing to bear. Iran is now betting that the U.S. is more desperate to end this war than they are. As long as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to normal navigation, oil prices will stay high, posing greater risks to the U.S. politically and economically. But we can't forget that the U.S. blockade is also causing significant pain for Iran. It's now a matter of who gives in first. As I mentioned last week, what's missing now is a way out, and that way out is the Strait of Hormuz. @Gate Crypto, U.S. stocks, Hong Kong stocks, Korean stocks, gold, CFDs, prediction markets—all-in-one trading platform.