Marco Rubio warns Iran on Hormuz, says US wants Russia oil waivers ended

3 min readUpdated: Jun 2, 2026 11:59 PM IST

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio Tuesday said Iran has “agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear programme”, and labelled the regime’s decision to block the Strait of Hormuz “unlawful and illegal”.

“What Iran is doing is ‘unlawful and illegal’, they have to reopen the Strait of Hormuz,” Rubio said during a Senate hearing where he painted an optimistic picture of the Donald Trump administration’s progress in West Asia.

Rubio claimed “that just a month ago, just a year ago, they were refusing to even mention” these aspects. But he quickly struck a more realistic note.

This was “not a guarantee,” he said, that the negotiations would ultimately lead to a “deal that’s acceptable” by Congress. He said the instability of Iran’s leadership had made negotiations difficult.

VIDEO | Washington: “Iran has agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear program,” says US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

(Source: Third Party) pic.twitter.com/tGPqIh5U3V

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) June 2, 2026

Rubio, a key Trump administration official, took on a host of questions about the government’s diplomatic efforts around the world that showed signs of hitting a wall. He is appearing for back-to-back hearings on Capitol Hill for the first time since the Iran war began on February 28 with US and Israeli coordinated strikes.

He also said that Iran’s naval forces were entirely eliminated and said “today, there is no Iranian navy. There is no such thing. There’s a bunch of Boston whalers with machine guns on them. But there is no navy.”

JUST IN: Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers a blunt assessment of Iran’s military power, declaring that the regime’s naval forces have been entirely eliminated.

Rubio mocked their remaining maritime assets and said their sunken ship are nothing more than soon-to-be… pic.twitter.com/LPXn3e5hOk

— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 2, 2026

US would like to end Russia oil sanction waivers ‘as soon as possible’

Rubio didn’t specifically commit that the US will not extend the waiver on Russian oil sanctions, which have directly impacted India. But, the top Republican leader said “I would like to end it as soon as we possibly can”.

Senior Democrats in the committee questioned Rubio on whether the US will extend a waiver on Russian oil sanctions.

Currently, Washington has extended waivers for countries importing Russian oil if tankers are already at sea in order to ease oil shortages caused by the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

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Rubio said the decision will ultimately be made by the US Treasury Department, “but I will tell you, it depends on the circumstances at the time.”

“We would like to end it as soon as we possibly can, because the underlying policy of this country has been to sanction their oil. These are time-limited waivers for the purpose of opening up more global supply,” Rubio said.

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