The US ambassador to the United Nations said Sunday the world’s economy can’t continue to be held hostage by Iran, as the US weighs the latest peace proposal from its adversary.
“The world should not tolerate an Iranian regime that is trying to choke off the entire world’s economy,” US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said in an interview with “Fox News Sunday.”
“It cannot start just throwing sea mines indiscriminately out into the ocean, attacking shipping,” he said. “They’ve even now started talking about on Iranian state TV of taking the undersea cables that move financial data, cloud information and all kinds of important economic information in and out of the Gulf.”
Waltz’s comments come as Iran has sent its response to the latest US proposal for ending the war through a Pakistani mediator, according to Iranian state media.
“We’ll see what the Iranians just came back with overnight in terms of their response to our very clear red line,” Waltz said. “President (Donald) Trump has been clear they will never have a nuclear weapon and they cannot hold the world’s economies hostage.”
But as the tension continues, Waltz made clear that while the US is prepared for the resumption of military hostilities, Trump wants to focus on diplomacy.
“He is giving diplomacy every chance that he can before going back to hostilities,” Waltz said on ABC’s “This Week”