Nournews: In recent days, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly posted unsubstantiated claims about Iran’s economic situation, in an apparent effort to portray his policy of bringing Iran to its knees as a success.
Before examining Donald Trump’s claim that Iran is “collapsing,” it may be worth looking inward at the United States itself: an economy carrying more than $40 trillion in federal debt, facing interest costs that have surpassed $1 trillion, and dealing with a bond market in which rising Treasury yields have pushed Washington policymakers toward closer intervention and more careful management of the yield curve. None of these developments, on their own, signal the collapse of the U.S. economy. They do, however, represent measurable realities that point to growing fiscal constraints and the direct impact of war on Washington’s political economy.
Against this backdrop, Trump’s claim that Iran is “collapsing” and is even unable to pay the salaries of some members of its armed forces should be examined less as a substantiated economic assessment and more as a political and propagandistic claim.
Trump’s rhetoric goes beyond a mere social-media assertion. In an economic war, the narrative surrounding the condition of the opposing side is itself part of the war. When Washington speaks of an “Economic D-Day” while the U.S. president predicts Iran’s imminent collapse, the two claims naturally have to be viewed together: an effort to portray economic sanctions and blockade as effective tools and to project an image of victory before economic realities have actually demonstrated such an outcome.
But if Iran’s economic condition is to be assessed using real indicators, the same standard should also be applied to the United States.
Reuters has reported that U.S. federal debt has surpassed $40 trillion, while interest costs on the debt have reached roughly $1.1 trillion. These figures show that the cost of government financing has become a major variable in the U.S. economy. The higher interest rates and Treasury yields rise, the more expensive government borrowing becomes, with the pressure potentially spreading from the debt market to other parts of the economy.
Against this backdrop, the U.S. Treasury’s decision to increase the volume of long-term Treasury buybacks from $2 billion to at least $4 billion takes on added significance. The move has been described as an effort to manage market conditions and help ease pressure at the longer end of the yield curve. But the intervention raises a fundamental question: Is the government merely managing the market, or is it also trying to control the warning signals being sent by the market?
U.S. economists critical of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s approach have stressed that higher Treasury yields could be a market signal of underlying problems in the U.S. economy, and that intervening in the market should not be confused with addressing the factors driving the pressure. The Wall Street Journal, in a critical article titled “Let the Bond Market Speak,” has voiced serious concerns about the condition of the bond market.
This is where the concept of “politically managing an economic problem” becomes important. If the market demands higher yields because of budget deficits, rising debt, inflation and the sheer volume of Treasury issuance, the government can use various tools to manage the pressure. But managing the signal does not necessarily mean addressing the underlying cause.
This issue takes on greater strategic significance when viewed alongside the economic war against Iran. Washington needs domestic resilience in order to intensify economic pressure on Iran. Oil sanctions, restrictions on financial networks, pressure on buyers and third parties, and efforts to limit Iran’s revenue channels all carry costs. If such measures develop into a prolonged economic war, the burden will not fall exclusively on the target; the side imposing the pressure must also bear the cost of sustaining it.
Therefore, U.S. success cannot be measured solely by how much pressure Iran is able to withstand. A more important measure is how long the United States can sustain that pressure without eroding its own economic and political capacities.
This is where Trump’s claim about Iran’s “collapse” can be examined from another angle. Iran may indeed be facing serious difficulties under sanctions. But proving an economic collapse would require concrete evidence of sustained disruption in government financing, the payment of essential expenses, production, exports and the overall functioning of the economy.
The United States, meanwhile, is facing an issue that is neither hypothetical nor dependent on narrative-building: $40 trillion in debt, more than $1 trillion in interest costs, and growing policymaker sensitivity to developments in the Treasury market. None of these factors means the U.S. economy is collapsing. But together, they impose real constraints on the government’s fiscal capacity.
This is precisely why the discussion should move beyond the simplistic question of “Which economy is stronger?” and toward the more important concept of resilience.
Economic warfare is ultimately not a race to inflict the most pressure; it is a contest over who can withstand pressure. The side that applies greater pressure is not necessarily the winner. The advantage belongs to the side that can sustain the pressure for longer, at lower cost, and without damaging its own internal capacity.
And this is where the narrative that “Iran is collapsing” confronts a more important question:
If Washington must simultaneously manage its domestic costs, closely monitor the debt market, contain interest rates, and absorb the impact of energy pressures and sanctions on its own economy in order to pursue an economic war against Iran, where does the limit of U.S. resilience lie?
The answer should be sought not in political rhetoric about Iran’s collapse, but in the numbers underlying the U.S. economy, the behavior of the Treasury market, and Washington’s ability to bear the costs of a prolonged economic war.
In the confrontation between Iran and the United States, the central question is no longer which side can deliver the bigger blow. The real question is which side can sustain the costs of continuing the war for longer—without allowing the economic war to turn inward and undermine its own economy and political system.
NOURNEWS