“The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won’t be taking any in the future. We don’t need it. We haven’t needed it, and we don’t need it,” Trump said. “We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on.”
While Trump’s remark was clearly targeted at European and Asian countries, the president took a more measured tone than he has on social media of late, where he has criticized NATO allies for not aiding the U.S.’s efforts in Iran.
The speech comes one month into Trump’s stated timeline of a four to six-week war. Trump issued his warning about the next two to three weeks alongside a brief reference that “discussions are ongoing” with Iran. It was markedly another vow that the U.S. is seeking to draw the war to a close, one way or another, as some in his inner circle have promised the war would be short.
The fate of the Strait of Hormuz, the blockade of which is already causing price spikes globally on energy and other products, will not be a consideration, Trump said. He predicted that “the Strait will open up naturally” when the war is over due to Iran’s need to rebuild its economy.
As part of his justification for the war, he cast Iran as an existential threat to America “and the free world.” He reiterated his previous calls that Iran must never be able to possess a nuclear weapon, calling the Iranian regime “terrorists” and saying their acquisition of nuclear weapons “would be an intolerable threat.”
“We took them all out so that no one would really dare stop them. And they raced for a nuclear bomb, a nuclear weapon, a nuclear weapon like nobody’s ever seen before. They were right at the doorstep,” he said, speaking at the Cross Hall of the White House.
He also took repeated pains to underscore the idea that he has been clear about the war’s objectives all along, including a White House fact sheet issued in conjunction with his talk entitled “President Trump’s Clear and Unchanging Objective Drive Decisive Success Against Iranian Regime.” But Trump has veered among justifications, including regime change – casting it in his initial Feb. 28 address as desiring “freedom for the people” of Iran – to destroying the country’s nuclear capabilities along with a host of military targets.
On Wednesday night, Trump insisted that he had never called for “regime change.”
“We never said regime change, but regime change has occurred because of all of their original leaders’ death. They’re all dead. The new group is less radical and much more reasonable,” he said.
The U.S. strikes in the course of the last month have resulted in the decapitation of Iran’s top leadership and have caused severe damage to Tehran’s military and nuclear sites. But it also led to the death of at least 13 U.S. servicemembers and the injuries of hundreds more so far, as well as spiking oil prices, triggering Iran’s retaliation on neighboring U.S. allies and prompting Iran to tighten control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump addressed some of the domestic worries about rising gasoline prices in his speech, blaming Iran for blocking the Strait and calling the spike – now at $4 per gallon – a “short term increase.”
As Trump spoke, the price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, jumped from just under $100 to $105 as the market reacted to his speech, which contained no plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz any time soon.
And he said the war is part of a net positive in the future generations of Americans saying, “this is a true investment in your children and your grandchildren’s future.”
“Tonight, every American can look forward to a day when we are finally free from the wickedness of Iranian aggression and the specter of nuclear blackmail because of the actions we have taken. We are on the cusp of ending Iran’s sinister threat to America and the world,” he said.
Immediate reaction to Trump’s speech was divided largely along party lines. Sen. Mark Warner (R-Va.), vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said despite the decapitation strike on Iran’s leadership, “there is no evidence it is any better — and in many ways it may be worse.”
“There is still no clear plan to secure Iran’s nuclear material, its ballistic missile capabilities remain a threat, and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. At the same time, the administration is easing oil sanctions in a way that is sending billions of dollars back to the very regime we are confronting,” Warner said.
Leaving the reopening of Hormuz to other nations will only empower Iran, said Danny Citrinowicz, a former top Iran researcher for the Israel Defense Forces. It gives Iran permission to levy a toll on energy that will only grow its influence and power in the region, he said. That will also make it harder for countries to impose or uphold sanctions on Iran and will force Europe and Asia to negotiate with them as well, he said.
“For the Iranians, it’s a gold mine that they’re sitting on,” Citrinowicz said. “For the Gulf states, it’s going to be very, very bad, because they will be highly dependent on Iran about everything because Iran will hold them as hostages.”
Mark Dubowitz of the hawkish thinktank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who has supported Trump’s operation in Iran, said Trumps message was “unmistakable.”
“The next phase appears aimed not only at military targets but at the economic infrastructure that funds repression, terrorism, and regional aggression. Under current restrictions, Tehran can sell oil, but it cannot bring the funds back to Iran, and can only buy goods from China. Without those funds, it cannot rebuild its shattered capabilities,” he said in a statement.
Scott Waldman and Nahal Toosi contributed to this report.