Former US defence secretary Lloyd Austin says US Navy could open Strait of Hormuz

LONDON – Former US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said the US Navy is capable of prying open the Strait of Hormuz but that an extended military operation to free up the vital oil and gas waterway would be costly and require allies.

“Certainly, the United States Navy could open the Strait of Hormuz,” Austin, who served as former US President Joe Biden’s defence chief, told Bloomberg’s London Bureau Chief Ruth David at the HSBC Gulf Cooperation Council Exchanges Conference in London.

“Holding it open for a long period of time would be pretty costly and so we’d like to see an international effort, if that’s the case,” he continued.

“If we get it open, we want to get allies and partners involved in that because freedom of navigation is not just important to the United States of America, it’s important to the entire globe.”

Austin led the Pentagon’s effort to help Israel after the Oct 7, 2023 attacks by Iran-backed Hamas militants and also played a key role in coordinating NATO support for Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Austin pointed to Israel’s continuing attacks against Hezbollah militants in Lebanon – which sparked a round of direct clashes between Iran and Israel – as a major obstacle to broader diplomatic efforts to end the war.

He said he’d “like to see that tamped down” so talks can continue.

“We would like to see this ceasefire hold, so that we can get negotiations completed and then we can get the strait open again,” Austin, who is now a national security consultant, said.

“It’s important to not only the United States but the entire global economy. And so, the sooner we can do that, the better.”

Iran and Israel have agreed to ease strikes against each other after the flare-up in violence threatened to derail broader US-Iran negotiations and led President Donald Trump to call for de-escalation.

Asked about Taiwan, Austin said he did not think Chinese President Xi Jinping wants to seize the democratically run island by force but warned about the fallout from any conflict.

“If there’s a fight in the Taiwan Strait, or in the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait, it will have a much greater impact on the global economy than what we’ve seen with the Strait of Hormuz,” he said. BLOOMBERG