Editor’s note: This is a recap of the war in Iran for Monday, March 16. For the latest on the Iran war, visit USA TODAY’s live coverage for Tuesday, March 17.
After first demanding countries from Asia to Europe join a naval coalition to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump lashed out at the weak international response, saying of the laggards: “We don’t need them.
Trump had earlier on Monday called Iran a “paper tiger” as he tried to cajole more countries into sending warships to secure the strait for shipping as U.S. gas prices went up and the Iran war reached its 17th day. Gas prices have surged since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28 and Iran closed the Persian Gulf waterway, a choke point for 20% of the world’s oil.
Several allies said: Thanks, but no thanks.
“What does Trump expect a handful of European frigates to do that the powerful U.S. Navy cannot?” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters. “This is not our war, and we didn’t start it.”
“I don’t do a hard sell on them, because my attitude is: we don’t need anybody,” Trump said Monday, after demanding help one day earlier. “We’re the strongest nation in the world, we have the strongest military by far in the world. We don’t need them.”
As Trump pushed for greater foreign support, family members of a U.S. airman killed in an accidental crash over Iraq expressed opposition to the war. “We didn’t need to be in this war,” Stephan Douglas, a cousin of Air Force Tech. Sgt. Tyler Simmons told a local Ohio TV station. “This is uncalled for, and this is what we get.” Simmons’ grandmother also spoke against the war.
Andrea Riquier
Oil stabilized slightly lower on March 16, allowing financial markets to heave a sigh of relief. Stocks rose, Wall Street’s “fear gauge” fell, and bonds gained some buyers.
Brent crude was just below $100 a barrel around 4 p.m. ET, down about 3%. Still, gas prices – which take a little while to adjust to changes in the price of oil – were higher, averaging $3.745 a gallon nationally, according to GasBuddy.
“The rise in oil prices is worsening the growth/inflation mix” even as stocks are more vulnerable for a downturn, Goldman Sachs analysts wrote on March 16.
Goldman’s commodity analysts now assume 21 days of reduced flows through the Strait of Hormuz, they wrote, and expect Brent to average $98 through March and April, about 40% higher than the 2025 average, before falling back to $71 by the end of the year. But anything more extreme than that might test both the economy and markets, they note.
The health of the stock market is important, because many analysts believe spending by higher-income Americans is what’s propping up the economy. They are spending in large part because the stock market has been healthy, leading to what many economists call the “wealth effect.”
Terry Collins
A fifth member of theIranian women’s soccer teamhas withdrawn her asylum claim in Australia and left the country to return to Iran, according to Australian government officials.
This move now leaves two players from the seven players, and a player handler who accepted asylum offersand from the Australian government after the Asian Cup tournament last week, the Australian Broadcasting Corporationreported.
The Iranian Football Association said the players in Australia would return to Tehran in the coming days. The rest of their team was relocated to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as they try to find their way back to Iran, Transport Minister Catherine King told the ABC.
“We understand the context in which they were making, it must have been just incredibly hard and very, very difficult,” King said. “They would have been facing enormous pressure from what was happening overseas in their home country as well. And … certainly, we are very proud that Australia has offered that choice to these women.”
“And ultimately it is their choice,” King concluded.
Kathryn Palmer
Family members of one of the U.S. servicemembers who died in a military plane crash over Iraq last week are speaking out against the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
Six U.S. Air Force airmen died in Iraq on March 12 when their KC-135 refueling tanker aircraft crashed after a mid-air collision. They had been supporting Operation Epic Fury against Iran. Tyler Simmons, 28, of Ohio, was one of the six who died, and his cousin told Columbus news station WCMH over the weekend that his death could have been prevented.
“We didn’t need to be in this war,” Stephan Douglas said. “This is uncalled for, and this is what we get.”
Simmons’ grandmother, Bernice Smith, also criticized the ongoing war.
“Families are suffering right now,” she said. “Just to create a war because you want to create a war is not right.” In a written statement reported by the outlet, family members of Simmons also urged people to vote, and said they are praying “for the United States to do better and be better.”
Cybele Mayes-Osterman
Around 200 American troops have been wounded in the Iran war, Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, told USA TODAY. That’s 60 more than the last estimate the Pentagon released on March 10.
Most of those injuries were minor, and more than 180 of those injured have returned to duty, Hawkins said.
Thirteen American servicemembers have died, including six killed after a refueling aircraft crashed in Iraqand seven killed in Iranian attacks.
Authorities in Abu Dhabi on Monday were dealing with a fire at the Shah oil and gas field caused by a drone attack and said that no injuries had been reported so far, the Abu Dhabi media office reported.
The Shah field is one of the world’s largest of its kind and is located 111.85 miles southwest of Abu Dhabi.
Daily oil exports from the Persian Gulf, home to top exporter Saudi Arabia and other major producers, have dropped by at least 60% in the week to March 15 compared to February due to disruptions and output cuts amid the U.S.-Iran war, according to shipping data and Reuters calculations.
Reuters
Shrapnel from ballistic missiles fired by Iran and debris from the Israeli interceptors that shot them down fell on Monday around Jerusalem’s walled Old City and some of its most sacred Christian, Muslim and Jewish sites, Israeli police said.
There were no casualties or major damage reported at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the nearby hilltop plateau known to Muslims as Al-Aqsa compound and to Jews as Temple Mount, a flashpoint site that is holy to both faiths.
Photos distributed by police showed three officers carrying what appeared to be a large metal ring-shaped part of a missile off a red-tiled roof adjacent to the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial and a popular pilgrimage site.
Another image showed a police cordon around a small area in the Al-Aqsa compound plaza which also houses the golden Dome of the Rock, with small fragments strewn on the floor.
Francesca Chambers
Trump had harsh criticism for American allies who haven’t agreed to police the Strait of Hormuz amid the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran: “We don’t need them.”
“I don’t do a hard sell on them, because my attitude is: we don’t need anybody,” Trump told reporters Monday afternoon. “We’re the strongest nation in the world, we have the strongest military by far in the world. We don’t need them.”
The president said during a White House event that he’d spoken to a number of world leaders about the coalition he’s trying to put together, including French President Emmanuel Macron, who he rated an 8 on a scale of 0-10.
He said he spoke to Macron on March. 15 and believes France will help. “Not perfect, but it’s France, we don’t expect perfect,” he said.
The president indicated he was testing allied countries, pushing them to help “in some cases,” because he wants to see how they will react.
Bart Jansen
President Trump said he supports Israel’s anticipated ground war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy group, after discussions with Israeli leaders.
“Hezbollah is a problem. It’s been a problem for a long time,” Trump told reporters at an unrelated event at the White House. “Hezbollah is a big problem and they’re rapidly being eliminated.”
More than 800 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon since Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Dan Morrison
President Trump is clamoring for allies to lend their navies to a proposed coalition to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz. But nine days ago, he spurned possible help from Great Britain.
“The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on March 7. “That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer – But we will remember.”
“We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!” he added.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose reluctance to help the initial U.S. attacks drew sharp criticism from Trump, said on Monday that Britain would work with allies on a plan to secure freedom of navigation through the strait.
But he said it would not be easy, and he reiterated that the UK would not be drawn into a wider war. Britain has autonomous mine-hunting systems that could be used in the Strait, Starmer said.
Bart Jansen
Trump said Iranians have made overtures to the United States to end the war, but he’s not sure if they are willing to surrender and that it’s difficult to know who the country’s real leaders are.
“They’re negotiating,” Trump told reporters at an unrelated event at the White House. “I talk to everybody because sometimes good things come out of it. But I don’t know if they’re ready yet. They’re taking a pounding.”
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was chosen to succeed his father, who was killed in the initial strikes Feb. 28. But Trump questioned his health because he hasn’t been seen in public and he reportedly has been injured.
“Nobody is saying he’s 100% healthy,” Trump said. “We don’t know if he’s dead or not. Nobody’s seen him, which is unusual.”
“We don’t even know their leaders,” Trump added. “We don’t know who we’re dealing with.”
Andrea Riquier
Oil prices reversed course to trade roughly flat, and gas prices were slightly higher at midday March 16 on the East Coast.
A barrel of Brent crude, the global benchmark, was virtually unchanged at about $103. GasBuddy reported the national average for a gallon of gas was $3.699, while AAA reported it at $3.718.
Consumers and the broader economy may be at risk if the war drags on much further. So too the financial markets, one strategist wrote on March 16.
Meanwhile, other Trump administration policies often tend to stick to a script: “a shocking announcement and then moderation (the so-called ‘TACO trade’),” noted Don Rissmiller, chief economist for Strategas. “Bottom line: investors have been trained to anticipate moderation from the U.S. There may be fear of missing out (FOMO) especially since such temperance could be signaled on social media at any time.”
If investors expect a hasty end to the Iran war given the White House’s past playbook, and that doesn’t materialize, they may be caught flatfooted, he concluded.
Oil isn’t the only asset that’s seen a price swing because of the war. Everything from government bonds, which have sold off because investors fear inflation, to domestic fertilizer stocks, which have benefited from the lack of competition from the Middle East, has been impacted.
Francesca Chambers
Trump at a Monday afternoon event “strongly urged” nations who rely on the Strait of Hormuz Strait for oil shipments to “get involved with us” quickly and “with great enthusiasm” to guard the waterway.
The president said at the beginning of a meeting of the Trump Kennedy Center board that he’d been a critic of protecting allied nations because he did not believe they would help the United States if came under crisis.
“We strongly encourage the other nations to get involved with us, and get involved quickly, and with great enthusiasm,” Trump said. “I have that from a number of them.”
Trump declined to say which countries he’s speaking to about working to guard the strait, saying they may not want him to share their names, because they’re afraid of being targeted.
“I say, wouldn’t matter if you’re targeted or not, because this is a paper tiger that we’re dealing with now. It wasn’t a paper tiger two weeks ago, it’s a paper tiger now,” Trump said.
Bart Jansen
Trump said the strikes on Kharg Island on March 13 “destroyed everything on the island except for the area where the oil is,” with a goal to eventually rebuilding Iran.
But he warned the oil facilities could be destroyed “on 5 minutes notice – it’ll be over.”
“For the purposes of someday rebuilding that country, I guess, we did the right thing,” Trump said March 16 at an unrelated meeting at the White House. “But it may not stay that way. Just one simple word and the pipes will be gone too.”
On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Israeli airstrikes on fuel depots in Tehran “violate international law and constitute ecocide. Residents face long-term damage to their health and well-being.”
Dan Morrison
Top Iranian officials condemned their Gulf neighbors for hosting U.S. military bases, framing their ties to Washington as contrary to the spirit solidarity among Muslim countries.
“Today’s confrontation is between America and Israel on one side and Muslim Iran and the resistance forces on the other,” Ali Larijani, a top security official, said in a statement posted on social media. “So where do you stand?”
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi joined in. “Hundreds of Iranian civilians have been killed in Israel-U.S. bombings, including over 200 children,” Araghchi said in a post that suggested “some neighboring states which host U.S. forces and permit attacks on Iran are also actively encouraging this slaughter.”
Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait all host U.S. military bases, and all have been showered with Iranian drones and missiles since the war began on Feb. 28.
Araghchi thanked Pakistan for its “solidarity,” and Iran allowed a Pakistan-bound oil tanker to pass through the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend.
Reuters
Israel warned that displaced Lebanese driven from their homes by its military would not be able to return until the safety of Israelis living near the border was ensured.
The warning from the country’s defence minister came as Israeli troops pushed into new parts of southern Lebanon as it intensified its campaign against Hezbollah.
“Hundreds of thousands of Shiite residents of southern Lebanon who have evacuated or are evacuating their homes in southern Lebanon and Beirut will not return to areas south of the Litani line until the safety of northern residents is ensured,” Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group, attacked Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader on February 28, the first day of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Israel has responded with an intensive bombing campaign.
The military has framed the ground offensive, launched after March 2, as a defensive effort to protect northern Israel from Hezbollah attacks, which it says have averaged at least 100 rockets and drones a day. More than 800 people in Lebanon have been killed, and more than 800,000 have been driven from their homes.
Bart Jansen
Europeans have begun voicing their opposition to helping the United States protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, in a war they say they didn’t start and don’t want to participate in.
“What does Trump expect a handful of European frigates to do that the powerful U.S. Navy cannot?” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters in Berlin on March 16. “This is not our war, and we didn’t start it.”
“Neither the United States nor Israel consulted us before the war, and … Washington explicitly stated at the outset of the war that European assistance was neither necessary nor desired,” German government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said.
Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said sending military ships to a war zone would be interpreted as participating in the conflict. “Italy is not at war with anyone and sending military ships in a war zone would mean entering the war,” Salvini told reporters. Spain said earlier it wouldn’t do anything to escalate the conflict.
Francesca Chambers
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that Trump could reschedule his planned trip to China at the end of the month for logistical reasons, walking back a previous suggesting from Trump that the trip depended on Beijing’s position on the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump said over the weekend that “we’d like to know before” the visit whether China would help with the strait before his trip. “We may delay,”he told the Financial Times.
Bessent told CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” as he met with China’s vice premier in Paris, that an overseas trip may not be feasible. “If the meeting for some reason was rescheduled, it would be rescheduled because of logistics,” he said. “The president wants to remain in D.C. to coordinate the war and traveling abroad at a time like this may not be optimal.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed to reporters later on Monday that Trump the trip could be moved. It was the latest signal from the administration that the war with Iran could carry into April. Trump is scheduled to leave for China on March 31.
Bart Jansen
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump continues to urge European allies to support the United States against Iran and to keep commercial shipping flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.
“I think the president is absolutely right to call on these countries to do more to help the United States to reopen the Strait of Hormuz so we can stop this terrorist regime from restricting the free flow of energy,” Leavitt said.
Trump “wished the UK had stepped up sooner and quicker,” Leavitt added. “But he continues to speak with our allies in Europe and is calling on them for support, just as he did when he called on them to step up with respect to their defense spending in NATO. He’s calling them to do more here.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday Britain would not be drawn into a wider war in Iran but would work with allies on a “viable” plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Leavitt referred questions to the Pentagon about Marines heading to the region.
Bart Jansen
Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command who is overseeing the war, said the military has flown 6,000 combat flights against Iran so far and continues to dismantle threats to commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Cooper said on social media March 16 the strikes continue to target the production and storage facilities for missiles and drones, including a strike March 13 on storage bunkers on Kharg Island. He showed video of the destruction of a drone storage facility near the Strait of Hormuz, a drone production facility in Tehran and a command facility that produced torpedoes.
Iran has nearly halted commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz with the threat of mines and missile attacks. But the U.S. military has destroyed more than 100 Iranian naval vessels, Cooper said.
“We are also zeroed in on dismantling Iran’s decades-old threat to the free flow of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz,” Cooper said. “We are not done.”
Andrea Riquier
Oil prices slipped fractionally even as prices paid at the pump ratcheted higher on the 17th day of the war with Iran.
Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil and the price most affected by the fighting in the Middle East, was about 2% lower on Monday morning, near $97 a barrel. That’s a gain of about 44% since the start of the war.
Gasoline prices follow those of oil, but with a bit of a lag. On Monday morning the national average was $3.683 a gallon, GasBuddy reported. In some areas, particularly the West, prices have been well over $5 a gallon for a while.
That doesn’t bode well for consumers. Analysts had hoped for an economic boost from bigger tax refunds this year, but that’s looking less likely as the war drags on.
“The oil price shock could easily offset the boost to spending power from tax refunds. The jump in gas prices alone will subtract a full percentage point from real aftertax income, if the current $99 (oil) price is sustained,” wrote Pantheon Macroeconomics’ U.S. team in a March 16 note.
As of right now, futures contracts – the right to buy and sell commodities at a certain price – suggest the current shock will recede in the coming months. But if that changes, the damage to the economy could be more severe, Pantheon and others believe.
Bart Jansen
The House and Senate intelligence committees will be holding their annual hearings to learn about worldwide threats, where attention is likely to focus on the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
The House panel meets at 2 p.m. on March 17. Witnesses include Lt. Gen. James Adams, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Tulsi Gabbard, director of the Office of National Intelligence; Lt. Gen. William Hartman, acting director of the National Security Agency; FBI Director Kash Patel and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
The Senate panel meets at 10 a.m. on March 18.
Reuters
It remains to be seen if President Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping takes place as scheduled later this month, but any changes would be due to logistics amid the Iran war, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC.
Bessent’s remarks come after Trump told the Financial Times on Sunday he may postpone a meeting with Xi if China does not help to unblock the Strait of Hormuz. The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Trump is due to travel to China from March 31 to April 2 for a highly anticipated meeting between the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies.
Bart Jansen
French President Emmanuel Macron joined the chorus on Sunday in urging Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to allow shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Macron also called on Iran to halt attacks against countries in the Middle East whether directly or through proxies, including in Lebanon and Iraq.
“I reminded him that France is acting within a strictly defensive framework aimed at protecting its interests, its regional partners, and freedom of navigation, and that it is unacceptable for our country to be targeted,” Macron said on social media. “The unchecked escalation we are witnessing is plunging the entire region into chaos, with major consequences today and for the years to come.”
Christopher Cann
Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Monday said the country’s armed forces are in control of the Strait of Hormuz and that the trade route will remain closed to the U.S., Israel and their allies.
“The Strait of Hormuz will not be open to any country intending to harm Iran,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said at a news conference carried by Iranian state media.
Christopher Cann
Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said its exploring option to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, including expanding its naval presence near the shipping lane.
“It is in our interest to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, and that’s why we are also discussing what we can do in this regard from the European side,” Kallas said ahead of a meeting of the EU’s foreign ministers.
Officials in Japan and Australia said their countries have no intention of sending ships. China has not commented on Trump’s demands and threat to delay next month’s summit in Beijing.
Reuters
U.S. stock index futures rose on Monday with shares of Meta among top gainers after a report said the megacap was prepping for sweeping AI-related layoffs, even as elevated crude prices due to the raging Middle East conflict kept risk-taking in check.
Meta gained 3% in premarket trading after a Reuters report said it was planning to shrink 20% or more of its workforce to offset costly artificial intelligence infrastructure bets and prepare for greater efficiency brought about by AI-assisted workers.
Keeping investors cautious were crude prices pinned at $100 a barrel, as shipments through the crucial Strait of Hormuz stayed mostly shut and U.S. President Donald Trump‘s demands for a coalition to secure safe passage seemed to be in vain.
Dinah Voyles Pulver
Japan is among the countries Trump hoped would send ships to the Strait of Hormuz. But Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Monday the country has no plans to dispatch naval vessels to escort vessels in the Middle East, Reuters reported.
“We have not made any decisions whatsoever about dispatching escort ships. We are continuing to examine what Japan can do independently and what can be done within the legal framework,” Takaichi told parliament.
Trump’s request for Japan to help protect oil and gas shipments puts the country in a difficult position because its war-renouncing constitution limits the scope of overseas military operations it can conduct, Reuters reported. It can deploy military overseas only to respond to existential threats to the nation.
Takaichi told lawmakers she will travel to Washington, DC, this week for talks with Trump that will include the situation in Iran.
Contributing: Reuters
Dinah Voyles Pulver
Trump on Sunday accused Iran of using artificial intelligence as a “disinformation weapon” to misrepresent its wartime successes and support.
“AI can be very dangerous, we have to be very careful with it,” the president told reporters on Air Force One shortly after he made a post on his Truth Social platform where he accused Western media outlets, without evidence, of “close coordination” with Iran to spread AI-generated “fake news.”
Over the weekend, Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission’s chief, threatened to pull the broadcast licenses of media outlets that run news related to the war in Iran that the Trump administration considers a hoax or distorts the truth.
In a Truth Social post, Trump praised Carr’s admonishment, saying he was “thrilled” to see the FCC “looking at the licenses of some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations.”
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, and others spoke out against Carr’s statements. In a post on X, Bennet said that it is “a direct attack on the free press in the United States. It cannot be allowed to stand.”
Contributing: Reuters
Kate Perez and James Powel
The Trump administration plans to announce as early as this week that multiple countries have agreed to form a coalition that will escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.
The newspaper, citing unnamed U.S. officials, reported that the countries are still discussing whether those operations would begin before or after hostilities end. USA TODAY has reached out to the White House for confirmation of the report, as well as to the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and Australia for comment on their potential inclusion.
The report comes after Trump took to Truth Social and called on other countries to send ships to the Strait of Hormuz, a vital 100-mile-long waterway that connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Iran announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz days after the start of the war.
Contributing: Charles Ventura, USA TODAY; Reuters