00:00We all would love to see an agreement with Iran in which the Straits are open and they abandon their
00:05nuclear ambitions and so forth, their nuclear weapons ambitions.
00:09That's what we would all hope for, and that's what we're going to continue to work on, and that's what
00:12work is ongoing even as I speak to you now in that regard.
00:15But we also have to have a plan B, and plan B is what if Iran refuses to open the
00:20Straits?
00:20What if Iran decides we refuse to open the Straits, we're going to own the Straits, and we're going to
00:24charge tolls for it?
00:26At that point, something has to be done about it, and I would argue that there are countries represented here
00:31today that are more deeply impacted by this than even the United States is.
00:34So all I'm saying, and I've said, and I think this has been reiterated by others, there are other countries
00:39that agree with me on this,
00:40is that we have to start thinking about what do we do of a few weeks from now, Iran decides
00:44we don't care, we're going to keep the Straits closed,
00:47we're going to sink any ship that doesn't listen to us or doesn't pay us, then someone's going to have
00:51to do something about it.
00:52They're not just going to voluntarily reopen the Straits in that scenario.
00:56So we have to start thinking about it. I raised that point today. I got a lot of nods.
01:00I got a lot of people that came up to me afterwards and acknowledged it.
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