On Day 32, Hegseth held a Pentagon press conference in which he announced the US would “negotiate with bombs,” refused to rule out ground invasion, called out the United Kingdom by name, and revealed he had made a secret trip to the war zone over the weekend while his Morgan Stanley broker, per the Financial Times, had tried to buy into a defense ETF holding Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman in the weeks before the bombs started falling. Iran hit a fully loaded Kuwaiti oil tanker off Dubai. US gas crossed $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022. Trump told European allies to “go get your own oil” and then, four hours later, posted warmly about King Charles’s upcoming state visit. Pakistan’s foreign minister flew to Beijing with a hairline shoulder fracture to ask China to be the guarantor of a deal that Iran says isn’t happening and Washington insists is going very well. The IRGC launched its 87th wave of Operation True Promise 4, this time from the navy Washington said it had obliterated. The parliament in Tehran approved a toll collection scheme for Hormuz. The Strait doesn’t need to be permanently closed when it can be permanently monetized.
