President Donald Trump boasted of the profits the United States has made from its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, comparing the U.S. Navy to pirates.
Speaking at an event in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump recalled the U.S. Navy’s interdiction of an Iranian ship that tried to run the blockade, boasting of its efficiency.
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“They were going to ram the, we call it an iron wall. It’s essentially an iron wall. We have such great military and great Navy, and they were going straight through, and they said, ‘Turn your ship around!’ And there was no response. ‘Turn your ship around! Evacuate your engine room, immediately!’ And you see all these guys running out of it,” Trump said.
“Now, they’re 5 miles away, and one shot into the engine room, blew up the engine room. The ship stopped. They used tugboats, and then we landed on top of it, on top of everything else. We then landed on top of it, and we took over the ship,” he added.
The president then tapped into an unconventional metaphor for a professional navy, boasting that they were acting like pirates.
“We took over the cargo, took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business. Who would have thought we’d be doing that,” Trump said. “We’re like pirates. We’re sort of like pirates.”
TRUMP SAYS US MIGHT BE ‘BETTER OFF NOT MAKING A DEAL’ WITH IRAN
The U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, coming in response to Iran’s own blockade, was an unconventional approach to try to lift Iran’s shutdown of the strait. The U.S. blockade has wrought heavy damage on the Iranian economy, with its worst effects being felt this week.
Over just two days, the Iranian rial went tumbling by 15%. Over two million Iranians are estimated by Iranian officials to have been put out of work, risking a revival of protests that threatened the regime beginning in late December.
