President Donald Trump, whose administration has blamed Iran for the attacks on Norwegian and Japanese oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, described those and other recent incidents as "very minor."
Trump's comments came in an interview with Time magazine Monday.
In the interview, Trump cast doubt about going to war to protect international oil supplies; however, he said he might take military action to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
"I would certainly go over nuclear weapons," Trump said when asked what moves would lead him to consider going to war with Iran, "and I would keep the other a question mark."
Asked about the recent attacks on oil tankers, he described those as limited and said: "So far, it's been very minor."
He noted the Gulf of Oman is less important to the United States than it once was.
"Other places get such vast amounts of oil there," Trump said. "We get very little. We have made tremendous progress in the last two and a half years in energy. And when the pipelines get built, we're now an exporter of energy."
And Trump maintained Iran has adopted a less hostile posture toward the U.S. since he took office.
Meanwhile, Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, citing concerns about a threat from Iran, said Monday 1,000 more troops will be deployed to the Middle East for what he said were "defensive purposes."
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