United States President Donald Trump said Washington would intervene if Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen attempted to block the free movement of merchant ships in the Red Sea.
"So far that hasn't happened. It could have happened, but we're going to take care of that. We've done it before with the Houthis and we haven't heard from them for a long time," Trump said during a meeting at the White House with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.
Speaking about Iran, the head of the White House said that the Iranian leadership is urgently seeking negotiations, as according to him it has been weakened militarily.
"They desperately want to meet because they are militarily weakened. But if they don't have something concrete to offer, we are not interested in such a meeting," Trump declared.
The US president also commented on the recent missile and drone attack on US forces in Jordan, which killed two people and injured several others.
"They managed to get something into Jordan. If we had other operators, this wouldn't have happened," Trump said, without giving details of who he was referring to with this statement.
The US military announced last week that two members of the armed forces were killed and four others were transported for treatment after a missile and drone attack in Jordan, which was attributed to Iran.
