--- title: "US and Iran trade strikes for a sixth day as Trump plans a primetime address" description: "The war between the United States and Iran ground into a sixth day of exchanged strikes, with a U.S. naval blockade squeezing shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and oil prices climbing. President Trump was set to address the nation Thursday night as pressure mounts over an open-ended conflict." category: "World" category_url: https://herald.la/category/world author: "Lucía Fuentes" published: 2026-07-16T13:53:00.000Z updated: 2026-07-16T13:53:00.000Z canonical: https://herald.la/article/us-and-iran-trade-strikes-for-a-sixth-day-as-trump-plans-a-primetime-address tags: ["iran", "united states", "strait of hormuz", "trump", "middle east"] --- # US and Iran trade strikes for a sixth day as Trump plans a primetime address The war between the United States and Iran ground into a sixth day of exchanged strikes, with a U.S. naval blockade squeezing shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and oil prices climbing. President Trump was set to address the nation Thursday night as pressure mounts over an open-ended conflict. Nearly a week into open war, the United States and Iran were still trading blows on Thursday, and the fighting was increasingly being felt far from the battlefield, in the price of oil and the traffic through one of the world's most important waterways. ## The state of the fighting American forces have carried out repeated strikes on Iranian targets, and Iran has answered with missile and drone attacks aimed at U.S. installations around the Gulf. Coverage of the conflict has [tracked a widening U.S. campaign and Iranian retaliation across the region](https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/15/world/live-news/iran-war-trump). Casualty claims have been difficult to verify independently; Iranian officials have reported dead and wounded from the U.S. strikes, figures that could not be confirmed, and U.S. officials have generally not offered their own counts. The Herald is not publishing unverified casualty numbers. ## A blockade and a chokepoint A central front is economic. The United States has reimposed a naval blockade of Iranian ports, and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passage that carries a large share of the world's seaborne oil, has fallen sharply. Tracking data cited by [CNBC showed transits through the strait dropping steeply as the two sides fought for control of the waterway](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/13/ship-traffic-through-hormuz-falls-as-us-and-iran-fight-for-control.html). With so much crude normally moving through Hormuz, any disruption there ripples quickly into global energy markets, and prices have risen accordingly, a squeeze already showing up at American fuel pumps. ## Trump's address Against that backdrop, President Trump was scheduled to deliver a [primetime address on Thursday evening, expected to touch on Iran along with other topics](https://www.axios.com/2026/07/14/trump-speech-iran-election). The speech comes as the president faces competing pressures: from allies who want a decisive show of force, and from critics warning that an open-ended fight with Iran risks becoming exactly the kind of prolonged Middle East entanglement that two decades of American politics have sworn off. ## The stakes For now, the war is being measured on two clocks at once, the military one, counted in days of strikes, and the economic one, counted in the rising cost of a barrel of oil and a gallon of diesel. How long both keep running may depend in part on what the president says on Thursday night, and on whether either side sees a way to stop that does not look like backing down. Until then, the Strait of Hormuz remains the place to watch: a stretch of water where a local confrontation keeps turning into a global problem. ## Sources - [Iran war live updates (July 15)](https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/15/world/live-news/iran-war-trump) - [Ship traffic through Hormuz falls as US and Iran fight for control](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/13/ship-traffic-through-hormuz-falls-as-us-and-iran-fight-for-control.html) - [Trump set to address Iran, election integrity in prime-time speech](https://www.axios.com/2026/07/14/trump-speech-iran-election)