US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Washington would respond immediately should Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels attempt to block the free movement of commercial vessels through the Red Sea.

“So far, nothing like that has happened. It could happen, but we’ll take care of it. If something like that happens, we’ll take care of it,” Trump said, speaking alongside Lebanese President Joseph Aoun during the latter’s visit to the White House. “We’ve done this with the Houthis in the past, and we haven’t heard them mentioned here in quite some time.”

Turning to Iran, Trump repeated his claim that Tehran’s leadership is eager to negotiate. “They’re desperately asking to meet with us because they’ve been weakened militarily. Since they have nothing substantial to say to us, we’re not interested in such a prospect,” he said.

Trump also addressed a recent Iranian missile and drone attack on US forces in Jordan, which left 2 service members dead. “They managed to get something through in Jordan,” he said, adding: “If we had different operators, this wouldn’t have happened, unfortunately,” without clarifying who he meant by “operators.”

The US Army confirmed last week that 2 service members were killed and 4 more were airlifted for medical treatment following the missile and drone attack, which Washington has attributed to Iran.