Trump's Iran War Hits Treasury Yields, 57% Disapproval Poll

Three months into the US–Israeli war on Iran, the conflict's cost is now visible in the Treasury market, in the polls and on the Pentagon's munitions ledger — and Republican senators are openly fighting to frame it as a long bet rather than a domestic burden.

Foreign Policy editor in chief Ravi Agrawal's May 18 essay, "Iran Could Be Trump's Greatest Failure," compiled the wartime balance sheet. NYT-cited US intelligence shows Iran has retained 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile, 70 percent of its mobile launchers and operational access to more than 90 percent of its missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz. The Washington Post counted 217 damaged structures across 15 US sites in the Middle East; CNN listed nine bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, the UAE and Qatar as significantly hit. CSIS said the United States had burned through between half and 60 percent of its Patriot defense missiles — more than Ukraine used in four years against Russia — and a third of its Tomahawk stocks. Thirteen US service members have died and more than 400 are injured; both Patriot and Tomahawk munitions take up to four years to manufacture and replace.

The bond market spent the day rendering its verdict. Government bonds from Tokyo to New York extended losses as energy prices fed by the Hormuz closure stoked fresh inflation fears; US 10-year yields had crossed 4.5 percent on May 13 and the 30-year yield touched 5.11 percent, the highest since 2007. Incoming Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh inherits the resulting paradox: equity markets sitting at AI-driven highs while bond markets price persistent inflation, fiscal deficits and capital demand from the build-out. The Hormuz closure also keeps US gasoline up nearly 50 percent year-on-year and diesel up 59 percent.

A CBS News/YouGov poll released Sunday told the political story: 57 percent of Americans say Trump's policies are making them financially worse off, and 44 percent now rate their personal finances "fairly bad" or "very bad." Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) used "Face the Nation" on Sunday to defend Trump's posture that he does not think about Americans' financial situation in the Iran context, calling it Trump's "Churchill moment" and urging more strikes.

Israeli media reported that US military bases in Germany had moved tens of cargo flights of arms and ammunition to Israel over the past 24 hours, adding to the 6,500 tonnes delivered in late April, as the IDF stood on high alert for a possible Trump-authorised return to direct strikes on Iran. The New York Times separately reported that Israel had built two covert military outposts in Iraq's western desert from late 2024, used to house special forces and to support search-and-rescue and air operations against Iran — adding to the previously disclosed base near Najaf. Analysts argued the war was deepening proxy contests in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa, sharpening rifts between Israel/UAE and Egypt/Saudi/Turkey blocs and worsening conflicts in Sudan, Ethiopia and Somaliland.

In Havana, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel warned on social media that a US military attack would cause a "bloodbath" with incalculable consequences, days after CIA director John Ratcliffe's May 14 visit to Havana to deliver Washington's demands and a Justice Department move to indict former president Raul Castro for the 1996 shootdown of two Brothers to the Rescue civilian aircraft. The Pentagon said it had killed Islamic State deputy leader Abu Bilal al-Minuki in northeastern Nigeria; the White House confirmed Trump plans a permanent helicopter pad on the South Lawn because newer helicopters are damaging the grass; and the administration allowed a Russian oil sanctions waiver to lapse as Putin prepares his Beijing trip.