“And here is what I find remarkable. That leadership did not stay at the top. It moved through an entire nation.
We see it in our armed forces, our civil defense, who are keeping the country protected and safe under sustained attack. We see it in nurses who stay at their posts while missiles and drones fly overhead. We see it in engineers who keep their lights on when it has been easy to stop.
No one ordered them to be brave. They simply were. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the last few weeks have reminded us of a fundamental truth. Energy security is not a slogan. It is the difference between lights on and lights off. And that difference runs through one narrow waterway, the Strait of Hormuz.
Nearly a fifth of the world’s oil, a third of its fertilizers, and vast flows of the raw materials that keep the global economy running all pass through a single chokepoint. When Hormuz is open, the world barely thinks about it. When it is threatened, every economy on earth feels it.
Slower growth, higher prices, and the most vulnerable pay first. So let me repeat what I said on Monday, because it bears repeating. Weaponizing the Strait of Hormuz is not an act of aggression against one nation.
It is economic terrorism against every nation, every consumer, every family that depends on affordable energy and food. When Iran holds Hormuz hostage, every nation pays the ransom. At the gas pump, at the grocery store, at the pharmacy, every household.
No country can be allowed to destabilize the global economy in this way. Not now, not ever. And I genuinely struggle to understand why the world tolerates what can only be defined as an extortion of global scale.
Colleagues, you learn who your real partners are when the pressure rises. Not in what they say, but in what they do and how they show up. And nowhere that is clearer than in the relationship between the UAE and the United States.
Across security, trade, investment, energy, technology, healthcare, education, and much more. Our partnership is one of conviction. It is a partnership of true commitment.
Our partnership is not out of convenience. Our partnership is tested in peacetime and proven under fire. A partnership like this matters now more than ever. Because our region stands at a crossroads.
Two futures are competing for the Middle East. One exports instability. The other one builds industry. One invests in proxies. The other invests in progress. One seeks to build bombs. The other seeks to build bridges. The UAE made its choice a long time ago.
We chose openness over isolation. Dialogue over discord. Commerce over conflict.
I said a moment ago that you learn who your real partners are when the pressure rises. The same is true for nations. Pressure does not build character, it reveals it. […]
I’ll have to be very clear and direct about this. What I can confidently say, while we did not see this conflict, we were ready. Our system was tested, and our system responded in an extraordinary manner. When I say that they have launched more than 2,200 missiles and drones at the UAE, the success rate of interception was so far 92 percent.
This is an unprecedented success rate. This did not come out of nowhere. This came out of real hard work over many, many years.”
—Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, speaking at the Middle East Institute’s 80th Anniversary Gala. Washington, D.C. March 25, 2026.
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