DOHA/WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM, March 19 (Reuters) – U.S. President Don Trump said on Thursday he had told Israel not to repeat its attacks on Iranian natural gas infrastructure as tit-for-tat strikes on energy plants sent energy prices spiralling, sharply escalating the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Trump’s comment came as energy prices jumped on Thursday after Iran responded to an Israeli attack on a major gas field by hitting Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, which processes around a fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas, causing damage that will take years to repair
Saudi Arabia’s main port on the Red Sea, where it has been able to divert some exports to avoid Iran’s closure of the Gulf’s exit point, the Strait of Hormuz, was also attacked.
The strikes underscored Iran’s continued ability to exact a heavy price for the U.S.-Israeli campaign, and the limits of air defences in protecting the Gulf’s most valuable and strategic energy assets.
Trump, politically vulnerable to rising fuel prices among his core voters, has lashed out at allies who have responded cautiously to his demands that they help secure the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for around a fifth of the world’s oil.
But he said he had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to repeat the attack on energy infrastructure.
« I told him, ‘Don’t do that’, and he won’t do that, » he told reporters in the Oval Office, where he met Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
A U.S. official and three other people familiar with the planning told Reuters that Trump was considering sending thousands more U.S. troops to the Middle East. But at his meeting with Takaichi, Trump said he had no plans to deploy ground forces.
« I’m not putting troops anywhere, » he said.
Netanyahu, in a press conference later on Thursday, said that Israel acted alone in the bombing of Iran’s South Pars gas field and confirmed that Trump asked Israel to hold off on such attacks. Iran is being « decimated » and no longer has the capacity to enrich uranium or make ballistic missiles after 20 days of U.S.-Israeli air attacks, but a revolution in the country would not come from the air and would require a « ground component, » he said, without elaborating.