Former national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Tuesday accused President Trump of having “no answers” for reopening the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S.-Israeli offensive in Iran led the Middle Eastern country to close the passage.
Sullivan, who served under former President Biden, said on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” that it was “very obvious from the outset … that Iran would threaten the Strait of Hormuz, shutting down energy supply to the world, trying to dive up gas prices for ordinary Americans and energy prices for people around the world.”
“And yet here, nearly two weeks into the war, we seem befuddled by the fact that they have done that, and we have no answers for how to respond to it,” Sullivan said.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key path for exporting roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil and gasoline, has caused a surge in gas prices. The national average price for gas in the U.S. reached $3.57 as of Wednesday, according to AAA.
Trump, as echoed by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, has called for Iran’s unconditional surrender as the conflict rages on. Sullivan accused Leavitt of “playing word games about unconditional surrender, meaning kind of the opposite of what unconditional surrender actually means” when it comes to the U.S.’s endgame.
“We didn’t have a clear answer to the question, ‘What constitutes success in this war when we went into it?’” he added. “And so now we don’t know how to get out of it.”
Sullivan also previously served in the Obama administration under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and played a role negotiating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between the U.S. and Iran in 2015. Trump tore up the deal during his first term in 2018.
Gas and oil prices could remain high or spike further even if the conflict were to end soon, some have argued. Pacific Research Institute economist Wayne Winegarden told The New York Times last week that reopening the strait could bring prices down, but that a “short-term increase in prices” will “still significantly squeeze people’s budgets, and you significantly impacted the economy.”
Trump has dismissed concerns over rising gas prices while the strait remains closed, calling the war an “excursion.” He floated the idea of taking over the strait, claiming that it is now open and that ships are passing through, in an interview with CBS News.
More than 150 ships remain stranded after the strait closed on March 1, with two ships currently moving through the passage’s waters, according to hormuzstraitmonitor.com.
Unknown projectiles struck three vessels on Wednesday, with three crew members aboard a Thai bulk carrier called Mayuree Naree who have gone missing following the attack. Crew members on the other two vessels were reported to be safe following the attacks.
