Rubio vows to ‘strangle’ Iran economically

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that the US will continue to target Iranian oil tankers in retaliation for attacks on their warships, adding that Washington aims to “strangle” Tehran economically. “At the end of the day, they continue to fire at our naval ships and when they fire at our naval ships, they pay a price in tankers,” Rubio told reporters on Wednesday, claiming “they don’t hit our ships, but they lose five tankers.” “They’ll continue to pay a price for that, in the meantime we’ll continue to strangle them economically,” he added. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (L) and Ecuador's Foreign Affairs Minister Roberto Kury give a press conference at Carondelet Palace in Quito on 9 September 2026 (Rodrigo Buendia/AFP)