Iran-US war updates: Trump threatens to attack nuclear site as Hegseth reveals staggering cost of war

Pete Hegseth's latest estimate for the growing costs of the Iran war has now reached $37.5 billion.

That's likely a low-end estimate, according to analysts.

Before the last week of attacks, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies estimated total costs to have reached between $34 billion and $42 billion. Other estimates place the true cost of the war at more than $100 billion.

Escalating hostilities between the United States and Iran could reignite inflation, drive interest rates higher and knock global growth back to as low as 1.3 per cent, down from 2.9 per cent last year, World Bank chief economist Indermit Gill has said.

Gill, who retires at the end of August, said the bank had modelled three outcomes in its June economic forecast given the high uncertainty surrounding the war in the Middle East.

The worst-case scenario, with hostilities lasting six months or more has already come close to materializing, he said on Tuesday. Under that scenario, global headline inflation would reach 4.5 per cent.

Prolonged fighting and damage to the region’s oil infrastructure would also deepen food insecurity by disrupting shipments of fertilizer, helium and sulphur needed in agriculture, setting off a chain of secondary effects that could include higher interest rates, Gill said.

His comments were the first by a senior World Bank official since a sharp rise in tensions between Washington and Tehran and the collapse of an April ceasefire agreement that had fuelled hopes of a less severe impact from the conflict.

Donald Trump will attend a ceremony for four US service members killed in Iranian attacks in the Middle East on Wednesday.

The troops will return to American soil in flag-draped caskets.

The ceremony, known as a “dignified transfer” of the bodies, comes amid growing frustration with Trump’s war against Iran.

The war has cost US taxpayers at least $37.5 billion so far, has led to the deaths of 18 US service members and injured more than 450 troops. It has killed thousands of Iranians.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have raised questions about the war, which has caused global oil prices to rise and shows no signs of ending. Since the war started in February, Trump has offered differing objectives for the war.

The US president will travel to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for the ceremony.

Bulgaria has played down Iran’s warning that its plan to host US tanker aircraft would constitute complicity in “aggression and war crimes” in the Middle East.

The government said on Monday it would seek parliamentary approval to station up to eight US tanker aircraft at an air base in the Balkan country, which is a member of NATO and the European Union. Parliament is expected to greenlight the move at a session later on Wednesday.

The plan prompted a warning from Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, on Tuesday against allowing the US to use Bulgaria’s territory for military operations against Iran, which he said would make Sofia “an accomplice of aggressors and lawbreakers”.

Prime minister Rumen Radev said it was “categorically out of the question for military operations in the Middle East to be conducted from Bulgarian territory”.

“These tanker aircraft are intended solely for logistical missions, and they will be refuelled outside Bulgarian airspace,” Bulgarian media quoted Radev as telling ministers.

Donald Trump has issued threats to bomb a secretive under-construction Iranian nuclear site buried deep under a mountain.

The site, known as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, or “Pickaxe Mountain,†lies on the south side of Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment site, which was bombed by the United States during Operation Midnight Hammer in 2025’s 12-day war between Iran and Israel. But Pickaxe Mountain has remained untouched as Iran continues to dig at the site.

It remains unclear just what has been placed at Pickaxe Mountain, as the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog has never gained access to the site.

The threat comes as the two nations continue to exchange blows over the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday the United States is still willing to negotiate an end to the Iran crisis but claimed Tehran is not serious about talks. Rubio â made his comments in a meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers a day after three oil tankers carrying Saudi crude to Asia reversed course in the Red Sea, apparently in response to threats from Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis.

Here's all you need to know about Pickaxe Mountain:

Two French diplomats at the centre of a dispute between France and Iran were not ill-treated by Iranian security personnel, according to an Iranian foreign ministry official quoted by state media on Wednesday.

France has said that the diplomats in Tehran had their phones taken, were forbidden to contact the embassy and verbally intimidated, breaking international diplomatic conventions. One of the officials, the cultural attache, was hit.

The French foreign ministry on Tuesday summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires to protest the incident.

“France expects the Iranian authorities to shed light on this incident, punish the perpetrators, and ensure the security of its premises and personnel, in accordance with their international obligations,” the French foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

According to Iranian Foreign Ministry official Mohammad Tanhaei, Iranian security personnel questioned two French embassy staff who held a meeting with individuals who are being investigated for security reasons.

“Security agents transferred the two individuals to the diplomatic police as soon as they realised their link to the French embassy,” he was quoted as saying, adding that there was no intimidation.

France’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Pakistan has asked the United States for a $10 billion exchange stabilization facility, according to a source briefed on the matter, which, if approved, could provide a lifeline for the cash-strapped South Asian economy.

The request, which is being reported for the first time, follows Pakistan’s role in brokering talks over the Iran war, which raised its diplomatic profile and stirred hopes that it could seek economic gains from Washington and other partners.

In the request to U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Islamabad is seeking a Bilateral Exchange Stabilization Support Facility between the U.S. and the Pakistani government worth $10 billion with maturity of up to five years.

The facility, if agreed to, would bolster Pakistan’s reserves, ease pressure on the rupee and reduce its reliance on multilateral financing, even as Islamabad undertakes tighter fiscal and monetary policies in line with its International Monetary Fund program.

The U.S. Treasury declined to comment on the reported request.