US secretary of state Marco Rubio warned that Iran could “shut off 20 per cent of global energy” as he said the Trump administration would start to take steps to “mitigate” the impact of the threat.
“This terroristic regime led by radical clerics has the ability to shut off 20 per cent of global energy. That’s the kind of leverage they have because of their navy,” he said, adding, “we’re going to destroy their navy”.
Rubio added that there was “a plan in place . . . to mitigate against the impact”. Energy secretary Chris Wright and Treasury secretary Scott Bessent would “roll out these steps, starting tomorrow”, he said.
He also sought to brush aside criticism that the White House had failed to explain the purpose of its military operation.
“The United States conducted this operation with a very clear goal in mind . . . I don’t understand what the confusion is,” Rubio said on Capitol Hill, where he was due to brief congressional leaders on Monday afternoon.
He said the US was engaged in “an operation to eliminate the threat of Iran’s short-range ballistic missiles and the threat posed by their navy, particularly to naval assets”.
Rubio warned the most “punishing” US attacks on Iran were still to come. “The hardest hits are yet to come from the US military,” he said, adding that the “next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now”.