Secretary Wright Joins ABC's This Week - March 15, 2026

And I'm joined now by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Good morning, Mr. Secretary. Let's get right to President Trump's threat to close down the oil infrastructure on Karg Island. We have Iran's foreign minister firing back, saying they would target American-linked energy infrastructure if that happens. Your reaction? So the United States did not target their energy infrastructure on Karg Island, just the military infrastructure that's on the island. But since this conflict started, Iran has been attacking the energy infrastructure all around the Gulf, even among nations with no hostilities towards Iran. Iran's new supreme leader has pledged to keep the strait closed, and Iran's armed forces are warning the world to prepare for oil to hit $200 a barrel. How confident are you it will not get to that point? So Iran's activities, these pronouncements, their military strikes, all of this, I think, makes it very clear why this military operation was so essential. For 47 years, Iran has threatened the Straits of Hormuz, has attacked its neighbors, has killed U.S. soldiers. Just imagine, in Iran, that's nuclear-armed with a massive weapons arsenal to surround those nuclear weapons. This is why President Trump needed to act now, before, to stop the killing of American soldiers, to stop the destabilization in the region, and to end Iran's ability to threaten energy markets. Yes, we go through this period of short-term disruption, but better to do it now than to have a nuclear-armed Iran. Are you really sure it's going to be short-term? Can you guarantee it'll just be weeks before prices go down? Hey, there's no guarantees in wars at all. I can guarantee the situation would be dramatically worse without this military operation to defang the Iranian regime. The Straits of Hormuz, Martha, as you're implying, are very important for global commerce and for energy commerce, and they impact energy prices, as we're all seeing. They have used this threat for 47 years, and they've continued to build up their arsenal to make this threat graver and graver. In fact, it would soon be too hard for us to defang Iran if they were nuclear-armed. So this is short-term pain to get through to a much better place, where the Middle East can no longer be held hostage by the one rogue nation in Iran. And the 90 million citizens in Iran will get to a better place as well. Let's talk about the Strait. Let's stick with the Strait. They have taken out tactically the U.S. military dozens and thousands of targets, and successfully it would appear. But let's talk about the Strait and the planning for the Strait. Critics of the administration have said that the current standstill shows that the administration didn't adequately plan for the retaliation from Iran in the Strait. Listen to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday. How did Donald Trump not see this coming? How did his planners not see this coming? This is the one bit of leverage Iran has. Of course we knew they were going to use it. They've used it in the past. A college student with a basic understanding of geopolitics could tell you that Iran's greatest leverage is this narrow passage. You yourself said we've known about this threat for 47 years. So what would you say to Leader Schumer? So he's either being, you know, ridiculously naive or he's simply being disingenuous, which is more likely. Everyone knows that the issue with the Strait of Hormuz, of course, meticulous planning went into what might happen with the Strait of Hormuz, how to deal with that. Our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Kane, is known for many things, but high on that list. He's an absolute meticulous planner of all of the scenarios that might unfold. So why Chuck Schumer says these things to try to undermine the credibility of the United States military two weeks into a conflict, just just just quite offensive to me as a patriotic American, Mr. Secretary. So then what was the plan? Was the plan to let them effectively close down if they effectively close down the Strait of Hormuz, which they have done? We would just see a spike in oil prices, hope that you can get Navy ships in there to escort oil tankers. Was that the plan? We knew there'd be a temporary interruption of flows out of the Straits of Hormuz. In fact, some of our allies, Saudi Arabia, I'll call out one, but they're not the only one positioned over 100 million barrels of oil in storage outside of the Middle East before this conflict began. Just seeing the rising tensions in the region, knowing that this administration had the resolve to deal with Iran. So many contingency plans were taken. Of course, the broader Trump Trump agenda of having America become the dominant producer of oil and natural gas in the world and continuing to grow our capacity. So not only to mute the impacts of these interruptions right now, but to lead to a future where America is energy strong, energy dominant. Americans have lower energy prices and America can help supply energy to an increasing number of our allies around the world. But we're going to have disruption and we do have disruption. Mr. Secretary, in that planning, we see right now the president is seeking help in opening up that strait from other nations. He says that many countries will be sending warships. Can you tell me who those countries are? And the president said, hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea will send them as well. Was this not done before? Why is it happening now? And who are those? And who are those countries? The broader dialogues about energy security have been going on since the Trump administration arrived. For example, my engagement with the International Energy Agency. But dialogue about this specific military operation did not happen broadly right in front of it. The element of surprise was essential so that we can as quickly as possible destroy their military capabilities and their ability to project power. But yes, all nations of the world depend on products that come from the Straits of Hormuz. China top on that list, Japan, Korea, all the Asian nations is where the energy that comes out of the Straits of Hormuz flows to. So those are the nations that most immediately impacted by this. So of course, it's quite logical to have a broad coalition of the nations of the world work to reopen the straits. But first and foremost right now is to finish to to destroy Iran's ability to protect project military force in the region and around the world. I just want to be clear. It's going tremendously well. How ahead of schedule. How long should Americans expect for gas prices to be high? Are we talking weeks? Are we talking months or just don't know at this point? Yeah, I think that this conflict will certainly come to the end in the next few weeks. Could be sooner than that. The conflict will come to the end in the next few weeks and we'll see a rebound in supplies and a pushing down of prices after that. But yes, we were very aware, very aware that we would have short term disruption. We would cause some we would cause a little bit of increased prices on Americans. Prices today are still far below what they were in the Biden administration, where they were begging, bartering and bribing Iran to behave better. We had five dollar gasoline in the middle of the Biden administration. We hope we don't get there this time. But at least this increase in gasoline prices is for something that's going to change the geopolitical situation in the world forever. I just want to ask you very quickly, what will the Marines be doing? Will they help open the strait? All U.S. military assets. And again, as President Trump mentioned, of other countries will work to open the straits. Right now, our focus is destroying their military capabilities, including those that are used specifically to threaten the straits. But we need to finish those tasks first and you will see the straits open again in the not too distant future. OK, thank you for joining us this morning, Mr. Secretary. Appreciate it. Thank you, Martha.