Iran's GDP Shrank 10.1% This Year as Trump's Approval Rating Hits a Career-Low 32%

Since U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader and senior military officials in late February, touching off the war now in its seventh month, Iran's economy has taken a documented hit: gross domestic product contracted 10.1% year-on-year in the quarter running from late March to late June, according to Iran's Statistical Center, which released the figure Sunday, September 20.

That number, reported by the Straits Times and ENCA, covers what Iran's Persian calendar counts as the first quarter of the year, the period right after the war's opening strikes. The International Monetary Fund's July World Economic Outlook update forecasts a 5.4% contraction for all of 2026, according to Protothema.

The damage isn't limited to output. Iran's Statistical Center also put average annual inflation at 69.9% as of August, with prices up 89% year-over-year that month, Protothema reported. On the black market, the rial has fallen past 2.2 million to the dollar, more than double where it traded a year earlier.

Oil is the choke point. Iranian crude loadings fell from roughly 2 million barrels a day in March to just 220,000 to 255,000 barrels a day in August, according to data cited by Reuters and reported by Protothema. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has said that during an earlier stretch of the U.S. naval blockade, Tehran couldn't export a single barrel. The Washington Post's Susannah George and Asal Abasian report the renewed blockade, now two months old, has choked off billions in state revenue and is squeezing Tehran's access to foreign currency needed for imports.

Trump's Approval Falls With the Gas Price

At home, the war is costing Trump politically. A Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed Sunday found his approval rating at 32%, the lowest of his political career, according to Al Jazeera. That's down from 35% a week earlier. Just 17% of respondents approved of his handling of the cost of living, the issue Americans say will drive their vote in the November 3 midterms.

The erosion is happening inside his own party. Republican approval of Trump fell from 82% to 73% in a single week, and for the first time, more Republicans disapprove of his cost-of-living record (51%) than approve (44%). Al Jazeera ties the slide directly to gasoline and diesel prices pushed higher since Trump launched the war in February.

Trump himself said Wednesday the U.S. is "hopefully toward the end" of the war, though Al Jazeera notes Tehran has not confirmed that direct negotiations have resumed. Fighting continues in Yemen.

Trump's Wager: The Regime Breaks First

Breitbart reported Trump escalated his public rhetoric the same week, telling reporters Iran's regime is "getting weaker and weaker by the day" and predicting it will eventually lose its ability to suppress protests with lethal force. "The only answer is that they're being shot," Trump said, referring to why Iranians haven't mounted a bigger uprising. Asked if the CIA would arm Iranian dissidents, he declined to answer: "I wouldn't want to say that... it wouldn't be appropriate to say."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has called Iran's situation a "death spiral," laid out three outcomes he sees ahead: "Either the IRGC are going to turn on each other, the people are going to turn on them, or they are going to come to the table and want to do a deal that they can stick with," he said, as reported by Breitbart.

Not every voice on the right is convinced the strategy is being executed well. Historian Victor Davis Hanson, writing for the Daily Signal, argued the administration should have hit Iran's infrastructure, including bridges, communications and its airport, far harder in the war's first weeks rather than pivoting to a prolonged sanctions-and-blockade approach. "I didn't know why we didn't take out some of their dual-use bridges, their TV communications, crater their airport, and really do a lot of damage early," Hanson said. He also cautioned against assuming Iran's leadership will negotiate rationally, saying he doesn't "think you can believe anything they agree to."

That skepticism cuts both ways on whether economic pressure will force capitulation. Political Wire, citing Bloomberg reporting, notes Iran has endured six months of war without economic collapse and has decades of practice absorbing sanctions. Countries with trade ties to Tehran have so far shrugged off U.S. warnings to cut them off, an open question the administration's own strategy depends on resolving.

No ceasefire or resumed negotiation has been confirmed by either government as of this writing. The next data points to watch are Iran's second-quarter GDP figures, any change in crude loadings through the Strait of Hormuz, and whether the November 3 midterms turn as heavily on gas prices as the Reuters/Ipsos numbers suggest they might.