{"id":14769,"date":"2026-03-11T19:03:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T19:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/14769\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T19:03:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T19:03:24","slug":"trump-has-no-answers-on-strait-of-hormuz-jake-sullivan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/14769\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump has \u2018no answers\u2019 on Strait of Hormuz: Jake Sullivan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Tuesday accused President Trump of having \u201cno answers\u201d for reopening the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> after the U.S.-Israeli offensive in Iran led the Middle Eastern country to close the passage.<\/p>\n

Sullivan, who served under former President Biden, said on MS NOW\u2019s \u201cMorning Joe\u201d that it was \u201cvery obvious from the outset \u2026 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd 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,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key path for exporting roughly 20 percent of the world\u2019s 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump, as echoed by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, has called for Iran\u2019s unconditional surrender<\/a> as the conflict rages on. Sullivan accused Leavitt of \u201cplaying word games about unconditional surrender, meaning kind of the opposite of what unconditional surrender actually means\u201d when it comes to the U.S.\u2019s endgame.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t have a clear answer to the question, \u2018What constitutes success in this war when we went into it?’\u201d he added. \u201cAnd so now we don\u2019t know how to get out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a> during his first term in 2018.<\/p>\n

Gas and oil prices could remain high or spike further even if the conflict were to end soon, some have argued.\u00a0Pacific Research Institute economist\u00a0Wayne Winegarden\u00a0told\u00a0The New York Times<\/a> last week that reopening the strait could bring prices down, but that a \u201cshort-term increase in prices\u201d will \u201cstill significantly squeeze people\u2019s budgets, and you significantly impacted the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has dismissed concerns over rising gas prices while the strait remains closed, calling the war an \u201cexcursion.\u201d 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More than 150 ships remain stranded after the strait closed on March 1, with two ships currently moving through the passage\u2019s waters, according to\u00a0hormuzstraitmonitor.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unknown projectiles struck three vessels<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Tuesday accused President Trump of having \u201cno answers\u201d for reopening the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[375,102,34,7910,1772,5603,722,101,4569],"class_list":{"0":"post-14769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-strait-of-hormuz","8":"tag-energy-prices","9":"tag-hormuz","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-jake-sullivan","12":"tag-karoline-leavitt","13":"tag-president-biden","14":"tag-president-trump","15":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","16":"tag-unconditional-surrender"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116212098965720617","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}