President Donald Trump announced via Truth Social early morning UTC Thursday, that the United States is launching against Iran, what he claimed to be the "most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country," framing the move as "economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale."

Trump declared that Iran had "failed to take" a greater opportunity to make a deal, justifying the escalation by claiming Iran’s navy is gone, its air force destroyed, and its currency worthless. He issued a stark warning that any country allowing its financial institutions, businesses, or government entities to provide a lifeline to Iran would face "tremendous economic consequences."

The President demanded an immediate stop to oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, and front companies, calling the announcement an "ECONOMIC D-DAY" and urging allies to join the effort to isolate Tehran.

The announcement comes as peace talks remain at a complete impasse, with the Iranians and Trump confirming there are "no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled" with Iran. The U.S. had previously agreed to a 60-day ceasefire in a June Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, but that deal expired without renewal.

Iran remains defiant, with parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf stating the Strait of Hormuz will not be reopened until the U.S. meets specific demands: lifting the U.S. naval blockade of Iran's ports, removing sanctions on Iran’s oil and gas sales and unfreezing Iranian assets held abroad.

Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway responsible for nearly a fifth of global petroleum transit, has been effectively closed to traffic by Iran since early March, with the U.S. military describing its own naval blockade of Iran as "100% successful" and having redirected 65 vessels. Trump recently threatened "to bomb the shit out of" Oman, if the nation bypassed the U.S. blockade to broker independent commercial shipping routes with Iran.

The UAE recently halted trade with Iran following accusations that Tehran fired ballistic missiles at the country, Iranian officials denied the accusations. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has demanded Iraq crack down on Iran-backed militia leaders over ongoing attacks against its oil facilities.

U.S. and Israel launched massive military operations against Iran on February 28. In response, Tehran restricted passage through the Strait of Hormuz and demanded an immediate end to Washington’s maritime containment.

With peace negotiations abandoned and secondary economic sanctions taking effect, the conflict continues to drive global energy market volatility. Oil prices have risen above $90 a barrel as investors worry about prolonged inflation shocks.

"Americans think squeezing Iran harder will win concessions that were never part of the agreement,"  Ghalibaf wrote on X. "Bessent and Hegseth are way out of their league. Stop waiting for the clown crew to pull a rabbit out of their hat and clean up the mess you made."

During a 6 hours 23 minutes US Spacewalk 97 (or Extravehicular Activivity, EVA) which began at 1229 UTC outside the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday (Aug. 18), two Expedition 75 crew members NASA's Anil Menon (EV-1) and European Space Agency (ESA)'s Sophie Adenot (EV-2) successfully removed a failed Space-to-Ground antenna from the orbital station's Z1 truss.

With assistance from inside the station by NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway operating the Canadarm2 robotic arm and Jessica Meir assisting with suit-ups, the primary goal of the EVA was to replace a high-speed communications antenna that had failed in November, disrupting high-bandwidth data transmission between the ISS and Mission Control Houston. Though the station continues to operate with a fully functional Space-to-Ground antenna, which provides high-data rate communications with NASA’s Tracking Data and Relay Satellites and control centers across the world, including the agency’s Mission Control Center in Houston.

During the spacewalk, Menon and Adenot completed the removal of the failed Space-to-Ground antenna and performed a long-duration tie down of the unit on the space station truss structure. The crew members needed more time than expected to disconnect electrical cables and loosen bolts, delaying work to install a replacement antenna.

"We got into this with the mindset that we wanted everything to go perfectly," said Menon as the spacewalk came to an end. "Things were a lot different than expected, but what I would say that I am really impressed with is that all of those contingencies were well thought out."

Mission managers will decide whether to add the task of installing the replacement antenna to a spacewalk already planned for next Tuesday (Aug. 25) or to leave it for a later outing.

"We are looking at times," radioed Mission Control to the spacewalkers. "We are going to go directly to the long-duration tie-down of this SGANT on the Z-1 truss."

Near the end of the spacewalk, the crew also performed clean up tasks and an inspection and swap of a portable foot restraint near the Quest airlock. Their EVA ended once they were back inside the U.S. Quest airlock and re-pressurization began at 1852 UTC.

Spacewalk 97 was the first EVA for Adenot, making her the first female and fifth citizen of France to perform a spacewalk after Jean-Loup Chrétien, Jean-Pierre Haigneré, Philippe Perrin, and Thomas Pesquet. This also marked Menon's second EVA, bringing his total spacewalking time to 12 hours and 50 minutes.

The EVA is the fifth conducted out of the ISS this year, the second for Expedition 75, the 97th using U.S. extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) spacesuits and overall the 282nd EVA to date in support of ISS assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.