President Donald Trump has stated that China, Japan and other countries should be protecting their own ships in the Middle East instead of relying on free US protection.
“China gets 91% of its Oil from the Straight, Japan 62%, & many other countries likewise. So why are we protecting the shipping lanes for other countries (many years) for zero compensation. All of these countries should be protecting their own ships on what has always been a dangerous journey”, Trump said in a statement on Twitter.
….a dangerous journey. We don’t even need to be there in that the U.S. has just become (by far) the largest producer of Energy anywhere in the world! The U.S. request for Iran is very simple – No Nuclear Weapons and No Further Sponsoring of Terror!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 24 июня 2019 г.
The statement comes after Trump said on 22 June that the US would impose “major” new sanctions on Iran on 24 June following an incident where the Iranians downed a drone.
Iran last week said it had downed a US surveillance drone flying over Hormozgan province on the country’s southern coast after it violated the country’s airspace. US Central Command said that the drone was shot down while operating over the international waters of the Strait of Hormuz.
Following the incident, President Donald Trump said the United States was “cocked and loaded” for retaliatory strikes on Iran but added that he called off planned attacks because they would have been “disproportionate.”
Tensions between the United States and Iran have been rising since Washington pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers last year and stated imposing series of sanctions on the Islamic Republic.