The US threatens Iran's power grid. For Türkiye, the exposure is the energy bill.

Donald Trump now says the United States will destroy an Iranian power plant or bridge every time Iranian forces attack a ship in the Strait of Hormuz. Oil climbed toward $94 a barrel the same day, the BBC reported. Türkiye is not fighting in this war, but it pays for days like this.

Trump made the threat in a post on Truth Social, saying the targets could be "located next to, or in" Tehran, and that the response would follow any attack on shipping, "whether it be by missile, rocket, drone, or any other device." The BBC reported the post on the 11th straight night of US strikes on Iran. Iranian state media reported that air defenses were activated over Tehran, and explosions in Tabriz, in the ports of Chabahar and Konarak, and in Bushehr, home to the country's only nuclear power plant.

The strikes look set to grow heavier. The US told Israel it plans to escalate in the coming days, including heavy bombers against a site near Qom, the first use of such bombers since the joint campaign began, The Times of Israel reported and Anadolu Ajansı carried. Israel has raised its forces to their highest readiness for an Iranian reply. Neither Washington nor Israel confirmed the report.

This war reaches Türkiye through the energy bill.

Türkiye buys almost all the oil and gas it burns, which leaves it among the region's most exposed economies when a Gulf war heats up. It is exposed on two fronts at once, and the escalation pushes on both. The price of crude is climbing. And one of the two combatants is a supplier Türkiye still leans on.

The gas is the sharper worry. Iran was Türkiye's third-largest pipeline supplier in May, sending 951 million cubic meters, behind only Russia and Azerbaijan, according to the energy regulator EPDK. A higher world price is one thing. A strike that reaches Iran's export infrastructure is another, and Trump's new threat is aimed at exactly the kind of target, the power plants and the lines that carry energy out. A price rise makes the gas dearer. A strike on the line can cut it off.

Crude is more about the price than the pipe. Türkiye's biggest oil suppliers are Russia and Kazakhstan, not the Gulf, so a barrel rarely stops arriving. What changes is what it costs. At $94 a barrel, every shipment is dearer than it was a month ago, and Türkiye produces so little oil at home that the world price feeds almost straight into the import bill. Fitch, affirming Türkiye's rating on 17 July, named that bill a vulnerability if the war drags on, and forecast the current-account deficit widening to about 3 percent of national output this year.

Iran, for its part, is threatening the very channel that sets the price. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, one of Tehran's senior figures, warned on X that "in a region where we do not sell oil, no-one will sell oil," and that the strait "will not return to pre-war conditions." US Central Command answered that Iran does not control Hormuz, that American forces have helped more than 900 ships through since early May, and that the waterway stays open. About a fifth of the world's seaborne oil passes through it. Türkiye's own crude mostly comes another way, but the price set at Hormuz is the price Türkiye pays.

The money behind the fighting keeps climbing too. The Pentagon is asking for close to $70 billion more to sustain the war, on top of the $37.5 billion it has already spent, according to Al Jazeera. A framework the US and Iran signed in June, brokered by Pakistan, was meant to end a war that started in February. It has not held.

Türkiye has stayed off the battlefield and pushed for a ceasefire from the start, which is the position its exposure argues for. A country that imports its energy has little to gain from a longer war and a good deal to lose. For now the loss is quiet and cumulative: a little more on every barrel, and a little more risk with every night the strikes reach closer to Iran's power lines.