US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday once again suggested the international community should show gratitude for President Donald Trump’s illegal war with Iran, which has led to a global oil supply shock and created the potential for food shortages in the coming months.
Speaking with reporters at the Pentagon, Hegseth defended the president’s decision to launch a war of choice with Iran that so far has cost US taxpayers an estimated $60 billion.
“It’s a bold and dangerous mission,” said Hegseth. “A gift to the world. Historic. Courtesy of a bold and historic president.”
Hegseth also chided US allies for not getting involved in the war, which Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched in late February without any consultation or coordination with Europe.
“America and the free world deserve allies who are capable, who are loyal, and who understand being an ally is not a one-way street,” he said. “We are not counting on Europe, but they need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do, and might want to start doing less talking and having less fancy conferences in Europe, and get in a boat. This is much more their fight than ours.”
Are there reasons for the world to feel gratitude to the US and Israel for the war?
As reported by Barron’s on Friday, the war has created a global shortage of jet fuel that has led to airlines canceling flights, with Europe being particularly hard hit.
German airline Lufthansa, for instance, has announced it’s cutting 20,000 flights through October, and even US airlines such as Delta have been announcing cuts to save money, blaming the increase in jet fuel prices.
The South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday that Asian nations are bracing for food shortages, as the Iran War has led to a shortage of fertilizer for crops during the planting season throughout much of the world.
In addition to citing the effects of the Iran War on global food supplies, the newspaper pointed to scientists’ warnings of a “super El Niño” that could lead to lower than average rainfall.
“It is very concerning because this year is supposed to be a super El Niño, and you are getting into the planting season,” Gnanasekar Thiagarajan, founder of India-based financial research and advisory firm Commtrendz Research, told South China Morning Post. “This is going to be widespread across South and Southeast Asia. There will be dryness everywhere.”
Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), warned on Tuesday that there is a real risk of a global food crisis if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to shipments of fertilizer.
“The planting season has already started, and in most countries in Africa it will end in May,” the UN official explained. “So, if we don’t get some solution immediately, the crisis will be very significant and severe, particularly for the poorest countries and for the poorest citizens.”
Lecture to journalists
Hegseth lobbed his latest threat against the American press during the briefing on Friday, telling reporters to “think twice” about publishing stories containing classified information – a common journalistic practice that has brought to light mass surveillance, war crimes, and other government abuses.
Hegseth said that the Pentagon takes “leaking very seriously here” and blasted reporting based on leaks containing classified information as “incredibly irresponsible and unpatriotic.” He went on to “encourage members of the press to think twice about the lives they’re affecting when they publish things in their publications like the New York Times.”
Hegseth’s Pentagon and the Trump administration more broadly have been aggressive in attempting to curtail press freedoms, particularly amid the US war in Iran. President Donald Trump said earlier this month that his administration would attempt to jail journalists who reported leaked information pertaining to a US fighter jet recently shot down in Iran.
Last month, the Pentagon temporarily barred press photographers from media briefings on the war because Hegseth’s staff was reportedly displeased with “unflattering” pictures of the Pentagon chief.
The Pentagon has also attempted to force journalists to promise not to publish or even solicit information that the department has not specifically authorized for release – with violators forced to surrender their press passes. A federal judge has blocked that policy and rebuked the Pentagon earlier this month for attempting to reimpose the policy with insubstantial changes.
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, noted in a recent column for The Intercept that “the Pentagon’s legal filings imply that reporters who don’t follow the rules risk more than their press passes.”
“The government argued that although journalists may lawfully ask questions of ‘authorized’ Pentagon personnel, ‘a journalist does solicit the commission of a criminal act, and that solicitation is not protected by the First Amendment, when he or she solicits … non-public information from individuals who are legally obligated not to disclose that information,’” Stern wrote. “The government’s argument would have turned countless Pulitzer-winning national security reporters into criminals.”
“The Trump administration is barging through the door the Biden administration left wide open, when, despite warnings from First Amendment advocates, it extracted a plea deal from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Espionage Act charges for obtaining and publishing government records, including about Iraq war crimes,” Stern added.
