Trump Will Work With U.K. On Stena Impero Response

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a signing ceremony for H.R. 2, the “Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018” in Washington, U.S., December 20, 2018. REUTERS/Jim Young/File Photo

by Josh Wingrove (Bloomberg) President Donald Trump said he will work with the U.K. government on a response to Iran’s seizure of a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz.

“We have a very close alliance with the U.K.,” Trump said at the White House on Friday as he departed for his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey. “I will be working with the U.K.”

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that it seized the tanker on Friday, escalating tensions in one of the world’s critical energy chokepoints. A day earlier, the U.S. said one of its warships downed an Iranian drone, a claim Iran has rejected.

Friday’s seizure was the second Iranian move against a U.K. ship in just over a week. The British Navy intervened July 11 to stop Iranian forces from blocking a commercial oil tanker leaving the Persian Gulf.

A second oil tanker in the Strait appeared to have turned toward the Iranian coast, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. “It could be one, could be two,” Trump said.

Earlier this month, U.K. forces seized a tanker off Gibraltar that was suspected of carrying Iranian oil to Syria. Iran denied the vessel was headed to Syria and vowed to retaliate.

“This only goes to show what I’m saying about Iran: trouble, nothing but trouble,” Trump said.

–With assistance from Jarrell Dillard.