Trump’s Iran War Has Clear Winners and Losers

Hours after the Pakistan-mediated ceasefire between the US-Israel and Iran was announced on Tuesday, various media outlets started reporting that Iran may begin charging ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz new passage fees as part of a postwar maritime regime, with some reports suggested that tolls could reach up to $2M for certain large vessels.

With roughly 100–130 vessels normally passing through the strait daily before the war, even a modest fee structure could theoretically amount to tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue. At the upper range of estimates cited in early reports, this could approach $70–90 billion annually, though such figures remain speculative.

If sustained, such a system could potentially make the Strait one of the most lucrative maritime passage points in the world. For comparison, the Suez Canal generated about $4B in revenue in 2024, while the Panama Canal brought in roughly $5.7B in fiscal year 2025.

In the meantime, estimates of Iranian government expenditures in recent years have hovered around $56B in 2024. Under certain scenarios, revenues from a Hormuz fee system could represent a significant new income stream for the Iranian state, potentially rivaling a large portion of the country’s annual public spending.

While not formally confirmed yet, these developments could also be paired with another potential economic relief for the IRI regime in the form of sanctions easing. As Trump speaks about a solution to Iran’s “long-term” problem, hinting at permanently resolving tensions around the country’s nuclear program, lifting sanctions remains one of Tehran’s key demands, and would likely feature prominently in any broader settlement discussions.

Add to these changes the growing global perception that the IRI government is ultimately irremovable through external pressure, and the Iranian opposition at home may find itself in one of its weakest positions in years – forced to reconsider hopes of international backing and increasingly constrained in its ability to challenge the regime internally.

While Israel was not bound by its previous ceasefire arrangements with Hezbollah after their conflict following October 7, it may face stronger pressure to avoid escalation with the Lebanese paramilitary group this time, as Iran is reportedly demanding that its regional allies be included in any ceasefire talks.

While Israel does not appear adamant about indulging this demand today, having carried out its most intensive bombing campaign on Lebanon shortly after the ceasefire was announced, the campaign could be understood as a last opportunity to inflict as much damage on Hezbollah as possible before the terms and conditions of the newly brokered ceasefire are set in stone. Once Iran pairs the safety of Hormuz with that of Hezbollah, Israeli escalation against the group could become prohibitively expensive.

As such, the recent American-Israeli campaign on Iran is shaping up to resemble other historical instances in which failing to topple a targeted regime ultimately strengthened it. The strikes succeeded in eliminating several high-ranking figures, but Iran’s governing structure proved resilient, with replacements quickly emerging from within the system.

Emerging from the conflict largely intact, the IRI now has little incentive to moderate its behavior toward its domestic opposition or its regional adversaries across the Persian Gulf.

On the other hand, the reputation of the US military may struggle to fully recover from the political perception of the campaign’s limited strategic outcome. The war once again highlighted how relatively inexpensive technologies – drones, missiles, and asymmetric naval capabilities – can level the battlefield when facing vastly superior defense budgets.

This may reinforce a broader perception in parts of the world that the United States is increasingly constrained in its ability to impose foreign policy objectives through force alone.

More critically, some analysts argue that the conflict may have weakened elements of America’s non-nuclear deterrence by demonstrating the difficulty of projecting power in complex regional theaters.

At the same time, the US military continues to face structural recruitment challenges that have forced the Pentagon recently to expand eligibility requirements and introduce new pathways for enlistment in order to meet personnel targets.

Far from being just another controversial chapter in American military history, the Iran conflict may end up dealing a broader blow to perceptions of American military supremacy – potentially complicating Washington’s political and economic influence across the region.

Some regional partners, particularly in the Gulf, may increasingly reassess the long-term reliability of the US as a defense partner, undermining decades of investment in bilateral relations that contributed to maintaining the US dollar as a global currency for energy markets.

In addition, Trump’s repeated threats of committing war crimes against Iran – including targeting civilian infrastructure – have raised concerns among allies about Washington’s role as a guarantor of global order.

In fact, during Trump’s second presidency, the United States is increasingly viewed as a destabilizing force in international politics, alienating vast parts of its traditional alliance network, while simultaneously embracing some of the most aggressively isolationist policies since WWII.

Setting the stage for the war on Iran, Trump and his cabinet repeatedly emphasized that Iran wouldn’t be another Iraq.

They were proven correct.

After severing the head of the regime and striking vital military sites across Iran, the IRI exhibited a puzzling resilience, relying on a decentralized governance scheme to instantly replace its leaders while turning the Strait of Hormuz into a choke point that cornered the US into accepting a defeat-packaged-as-a-ceasefire. This was, indeed, very different from what happened during the early phases of the Iraq invasion.

Should the war settle on the current ceasefire, it would produce one of the clearest binary outcomes in recent geopolitical history. The US risks losing much of the credibility of its non-nuclear deterrence, while Iran may emerge with more sovereignty and fewer sanctions.