Exclusive: Experts and former officials say accounts are running dry, and funding a war with no clear endgame is the main challenge

Donald Trump’s war on Iran has driven the US military into a severe financial crisis, with the US navy forced to transfer money from its payroll and other sources to cover the costs of combat, according to documents seen by the Guardian, and interviews with navy officials, contractors and defense analysts.

The US-Israeli operation, which has depleted US munitions stockpiles and prompted retaliatory Iranian strikes that have wrecked strategic bases across the Middle East, is piling pressure on budgets across the military.

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On Wednesday, Trump officially signed a proclamation on Wednesday that suspends higher tariffs on 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef imports for 90 days. This comes after backlash to the proposal – designed to lower grocery costs for Americans in the run-up to the November midterms.

Several Republicans – in states with sizable cattle farming industries – have criticized the policy, saying it is a short term solution that will stymie ranchers’ ability to rebuild their herds.

Four leading livestock and agricultural organizations also wrote a letter to the president on Wednesday urging him to reverse course.

“Flooding the market with discounted foreign beef is not the way to rebuild the American cattle herd, strengthen food security, or lower grocery bills in a lasting way,” the groups wrote.

Donald Trump will begin his day in Washington, before traveling to Houston, Texas where he’ll headline a Republican National Commitee (RNC) fundraiser, and help boost Ken Paxton — the state’s attorney general and Republican nominee for Senate.

A reminder that Paxton beat long serving Senator John Cornyn in the GOP primary earlier this year after receiving Trump’s endorsement. Paxton is set to face Democratic state lawmaker James Talarico in November.

President denies visit was to gain support for Iran sanctions or due to fears that Putin plans to ‘test Nato resolve’

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Donald Trump has downplayed a visit to Moscow by the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, as “semi-routine” after he turned up in the Russian capital unannounced, triggering a wave of speculation about the reasons for his trip.

Ratcliffe was reported to have flown to Moscow on a government transport plane on Tuesday in a rare visit after taking off from the Andrews air force base in Maryland.

They should ask the question Reagan asked at the end of his debate against Jimmy Carter: ‘Are you better off now than you were before this presidency?’

The midterm elections are already upon us, and every Democrat and independent running against a Republican should ask voters the question Ronald Reagan asked on 28 October 1980, at the end of his televised debate against Jimmy Carter: “Are you better off now than you were before this presidency?”

Unless you’re very, very rich, the answer is obviously: “No, I’m worse off.”

Energy bills have increased three times faster than the rate of inflation while Trump has been president. The national average monthly utility bill reached $280 in early 2026, a 12% increase since the end of 2024, just before the second Trump administration took office.

Everyone can see that the Iran war has been a strategic disaster for the US, while a failing president pretends he is winning

Now is the twilight of Donald Trump’s supremacy. The US is still the richest and most heavily armed nation on Earth. That status is secure. The current president, contemptuous of law and indulged in lawlessness by a supine Congress, enjoys even greater power than the constitution allows.

With those advantages it takes a special talent for incompetence to look as thwarted and impotent as Trump does with more than two years of his second term still to run.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

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Donald Trump has threatened to increase tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, auto parts and steel to 50% today, after trade negotiations between Washington and Ottowa broke down last week.

On Truth Social, the president blasted Canada, and said the new duties will go into effect on 1 January 2027.

Investors will hope Kevin Warsh offers ‘comfort blanket’ at annual meeting of central banks amid bond market anxiety

The new US Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, faces a critical test this week amid anxiety in government bond markets over inflation and Donald Trump’s tax and spending plans.

As the world’s most powerful central bank prepares for its annual Jackson Hole conference, analysts said bond traders would be looking for signals from Warsh over its commitment to fighting inflation.

Abbas Araghchi says country is unbowed but president Masoud Pezeshkian admits its people face ‘many problems’

Iran’s foreign minister has dismissed the threat of a fresh round of US economic sanctions as a “desperate” ploy, even as its president acknowledged that the Iranian people are facing “many problems” amid Washington’s efforts to isolate and debilitate the country’s economy.

Last week, Donald Trump announced a new campaign to increase the pressure on the Iranian economy, calling it “the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country”. The US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, is expected to announce further punitive economic measures on Iran – which he has described as “the toughest sanctions in history” – on Monday.

As the president tries to extract the US from his Iran war quagmire, leadership in Tehran is only too happy to crush his midterm dreams

In the aftermath of his devastating election defeat, the US president remained haunted by regrets over Iran.

Months before Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan, eight US servicemen died in a botched high-risk rescue mission that failed to secure the freedom of dozens of US hostages seized in Tehran.

President at rally in South Carolina makes comments on key strategic waterway and jokes about bombing Iran

Donald Trump called the strait of Hormuz “an American territory” on Friday, as the US continues its military blockade of Iran’s shipping and ports while Trump’s administration struggles to end its war with the country.

“We don’t even know if we won, because I view the strait of Hormuz as an American territory right now,” Trump said, addressing a crowd in South Carolina. He was campaigning for senator Darline Graham, who is running to permanently fill her late brother Lindsey Graham’s Senate seat.

State sought to stop system off coast of Santa Barbara from resuming operations after Trump ordered its reopening

An oil pipeline can continue to operate off the California coast after a judge gave it the green light this week, despite the opposition of state regulators and environmental groups.

The system off the coast of Santa Barbara resumed operations earlier this year for the first time in more than a decade after Donald Trump ordered Sable Offshore Corporation to reopen it, citing US energy needs during the war in Iran.

USS George Washington will replace warship families say suffers from shortages, plumbing problems and low morale

The USS George Washington aircraft carrier has arrived in the Middle East, where it is expected to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln from its record deployment amid concerns about poor living conditions and morale.

US Central Command announced on Thursday that the Washington arrived in the area on Wednesday, and posted an image of sailors working on the flight deck as the ship transited the Arabian Sea. No date has yet been announced for the Lincoln to return to the US.

On one side, you face the domination of the Islamic Republic; on the other, the imperialist forces that republic claims to stand against

August marks the anniversary of the 1988 mass executions in Iran, a horror that echoes in the country’s current surge in death sentences. It also marks the 19 August anniversary of the UK- and US-orchestrated coup against the prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. Amid the current, indiscriminate waves of US-Israeli military assaults against Iran, this letter of solidarity denounces the repression of the Iranian people and their political prisoners by forces both at home and abroad.

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Interest rates, now sitting at about 3.5-3.7%, expected to go up if inflation doesn’t come down to Fed’s 2% target

The US treasury is doubling its buyback of government debt in an effort to balance out the bond market as officials at the US Federal Reserve remain divided over how to deal with high inflation.

The yield rate on 10-year, 20-year and 30-year treasury notes all hit 20-year highs this week, with the 30-year treasury yield rising to its highest rate since 2007. The rapid rise was concerning news for borrowers as major loans, including mortgages, are backed by treasuries.

Brent crude rises above $90 a barrel for the first time since 30 July after US president tells Tehran to surrender

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Oil prices have risen again after the two-month window to negotiate a peace deal in the US-Israel war on Iran expired on Monday with no end to the conflict in sight.

Iran said on Monday that it would take a more aggressive stance if talks with the US failed, while Donald Trump demanded Tehran “put up the white flag of surrender” in an interview with Fox News.

USS Benfold lost power after ‘engineering casualty’ leaving sailors without galley services, toilets and air conditioning

A US guided-missile destroyer reportedly spent four days adrift and without power in the South China Sea in July, furthering concerns about strain being placed on deployed military members.

The USS Benfold, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer which had been sailing with the George Washington carrier strike group, was reported to have been towed to Subic Bay in the Philippines, according to the US Naval Institute News, an independent military publication.

The president was forced to hide in a catering truck amid the Iran war, in an encapsulation of the conflict’s failures

For decades, Donald Trump cultivated a public image based on strength and dominance. He was a brash New York real estate mogul; a reality TV star who deployed his signature phrase: “You’re fired!” to eliminate contestants from The Apprentice; and eventually US president and undisputed leader of the Republican party.

In recent months, Trump has taken his boastfulness to an extreme, reportedly telling confidants that he’s “the most powerful person to ever live” and comparing himself with some of history’s most feared leaders, including Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin and Mao.

Senator Ruben Gallego calls carrier’s months-long deployment a ‘deep problem’ as wellbeing concerns mount

Democrats on Sunday intensified their demands for answers from the Trump administration over conditions onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln as the aircraft carrier’s nearly nine-month deployment continued fueling concern over crew morale, mental health and living conditions.

Ruben Gallego, a Democratic senator from Arizona, said on Sunday that problems onboard the Lincoln had kept mounting – and he blamed the carrier’s prolonged deployment on the unresolved war that Donald Trump started in February with Iran as well as lackluster leadership in general from the Republican president’s administration.

One US sailor’s mother asks: ‘My son signed up to serve his country. But why isn’t his country serving him?’

Naval families with loved ones deployed for months on US warships amid the Iran war have reacted with fury to Donald Trump and the defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s dismissal of their concerns about the extreme pressures and dire conditions they are enduring.

The Guardian has talked to three naval families who have been following the physical and mental stresses bearing down on their relatives with mounting alarm. The families, with loved ones on board the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Tripoli, all spoke anonymously for fear of retribution against their active duty relatives.

‘Complete unraveling’ of Trump and Republican project reflects attitude of not caring at all about governance

He was always one step ahead. Donald Trump won the US presidency as a wildly unlikely outsider in 2016 and staged an astonishing comeback to win it again in 2024. Even his foes grudgingly called him a political savant with an intuition for exploiting grievances that left so-called experts floundering.

But now they are asking if the dark genius has lost his touch. Trump is trapped in the quagmire of an unpopular war, obsessing over monuments in Washington and looking for a new spokesperson after his White House press secretary quit. If the 80-year-old was deliberately trying to sabotage his Republican party in November’s midterm elections, it is not clear what he would do differently.

Prolonged deployment is coupled with reports of water shortages, plumbing issues and attempts to jump overboard

• Trump downplays concerns about sailors onboard USS Abraham Lincoln

US navy veterans and military health experts are expressing concerns about the strain on sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has spent nearly nine months at sea supporting US operations in the Middle East, amid reports of poor living conditions and worsening mental health among its crew.

The San Diego-based aircraft carrier left port on 21 November, originally bound for the Pacific, but was redirected to the Middle East as the US-Israel war with Iran began. It has now spent more than 250 consecutive days at sea without a significant port visit, with its deployment repeatedly extended.

Seriousness of remark made in New York on Friday, and whether it signaled new policy ​position, not clear

Donald Trump has threatened to declare the strait of Hormuz as “a territory of the United States” as his administration struggles to conclude the war with Iran.

During a speech at a police academy on Long Island, New York, on Friday, the US president said he would “pretty soon” designate the waterway – a crucial chokepoint for global trade, through which about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil supplies typically pass – a US territory.

Defense secretary said conditions on aircraft carrier deployed in support of Iran war have been ‘completely misrepresented’

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, insisted a wave of reports describing deteriorating conditions and mental health struggles onboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln “completely misrepresented” the situation, pushing back against growing congressional pressure over the ship’s record-breaking, nearly nine-month deployment.

“We make sure every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment,” Hegseth told reporters during a visit to Panama, adding that “some deployments are longer than others” and praising sailors enduring “high seas” and “austere conditions with less port calls”.

Federal court rules administration failed to plausibly show ongoing violation of civil rights law

A US federal ⁠judge ⁠has dismissed ​the Trump administration’s lawsuit that ⁠claimed ​Harvard ‌University failed ‌to protect Jewish ‌and Israeli students from harassment in the aftermath of the war in Gaza.

In a ruling on Thursday morning, US district ‌judge Richard Stearns in ​Boston said the administration’s lawsuit – ⁠filed in March – failed to plausibly ​show ​an ongoing ​violation ‌of ​federal ​civil rights law on Harvard’s campus.

Energy is cheaper than at its peak in late April, but gas is still nearly $1 a gallon more expensive than before the Iran war

US consumer prices cooled slightly in July as the annualized inflation rate dipped down to 3.4%, though prices still remain higher than levels seen before the war with Iran.

Though inflation decreased 0.7 percentage points in June during a brief ceasefire between the US and Iran that brought energy prices down, consumer prices have remained elevated. Price increases hit a three-year high in May, with annual inflation reaching 4.2%.

It’s a great betrayal: poor communities neglected while multimillionaires peddle a global Maga agenda. How is that America first?

“THE CORRUPTION IS AT LEVELS RARELY SEEN BEFORE,” Donald Trump posted on Truth Social in February 2025. He was not referring to his own administration, but to the US Agency for International Development (USAID). “CLOSE IT DOWN!” the president added.

Just a few hours later USAID was in effect closed down, with most of the staff placed on indefinite administration leave. This was framed as part of Trump’s “America first” agenda. USAID, the Trump administration and his sycophants in the rightwing media had argued, was wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned money on ridiculous projects abroad instead of improving life at home. In the lead-up to the shuttering of USAID, for example, one of the most shameless lies about the agency, repeated without any evidence by the likes of Fox News, was that it was spending millions on condoms for Gaza.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist