ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - United States President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that while the major Democratic win in the midterm elections was down to the US-Israeli war with Iran, his past and future policy against Tehran would be the same in a bid to stop nuclear proliferation.
“I think it’s largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit, short term …but at the same if I'd have to do it again, I’d have to do it again because long-term, it’s the only answer. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters in his first public appearance since the midterm elections.
Asked if the political and economic costs were “worth it [Republican party’s loss],” Trump responded that there is “no choice” and that military confrontation was “the only answer." "Everything you see here someday might not exist" if Iran were to acquire a nuclear weapon, he added.
Trump’s comments came after an unscheduled speech near the White House Ballroom which he concluded by saying that US policy was ongoing and that “we have tremendous oil flowing out of the Hormuz Strait.”
Tehran has yet to respond to Trump’s latest remarks.
Trump’s comments confirmed a reporter’s question on Vice President JD Vance’s Wednesday post on X. “The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” he stated.
The US-Israeli war with Iran has driven the price of Brent oil up to one of its highest points at $95 a barrel since the war began in late February. Both Iran and America have imposed tit-for-tat restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz, stymieing the global supply of oil and driving up the cost of fuel globally.
It has been widely reported that this increase in the price of oil and the cost of living in the US has been a factor behind the Democratic party’s major win in the midterm elections.
Although Trump was not on the ballot in this election, he remains in the White House, retaining a veto power over decisions made in either the House of Representatives or the Senate. As a result, bipartisan cooperation on foreign policy remains ambiguous.
“I’ll get along, probably, with the Democrats, unless they want to be destructive, but I’ll have the power of the veto,” Trump said.
Also on Wednesday, the US Treasury updated its Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a list of economically sanctioned individuals and corporations linked to Iran.
The new list includes individuals and companies based in India and Turkey, accused of supporting Tehran.
Alongside a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, these sanctions form part of Trump’s “Operation Economic Outcast,” intended to economically choke Iran through limiting its export of oil thought to fund the war.
Earlier on Wednesday, Iran’s Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezaei reiterated that Washington’s policy against Tehran had caused “defeat.”
“The Iranian nation handed Trump a strategic defeat on the battlefield and in the Hormuz- and a Political defeat in Washington. Meanwhile, Americans got stuck with the bill for this war.”
Rezaei’s post concluded with a renewed threat against further aggression.
“Anyone who takes on Iran will pay the price - from the battlefield to their own doorstep,” he said.
