British finance minister Rachel Reeves criticises US President Trump’s Iran war for lacking an exit plan, highlighting global economic fallout and soaring UK fuel prices.
LONDON: British finance minister Rachel Reeves on Tuesday hit out at the “folly” of US President Donald Trump launching a war with Iran “without a clear exit plan”.
The comments to the Daily Mirror newspaper came as Reeves prepared to head to Washington for an International Monetary Fund meeting set to detail the economic impact of the conflict.
Reeves is one of several British government ministers, including the premier Keir Starmer, to express growing exasperation at the actions in the Middle East of its close ally.
“This is a war that we did not start. It was a war that we did not want,” Reeves, who is struggling to fire up Britain’s anaemic economy, told the tabloid.
“I feel very frustrated and angry that the US went into this war without a clear exit plan, without a clear idea of what they were trying to achieve,” she added.
The war, which began on February 28 with US and Israeli strikes against Iran, has destabilised the global economy and seen Tehran virtually shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit route for oil and liquefied natural gas.
It has led to soaring energy prices and undermined the British government’s attempts to counter rising inflation and bring down borrowing costs.
“Obviously no sensible person is a supporter of the Iranian regime, but to start a conflict without being clear what the objectives are and not being clear about how you are going to get out of it, I do think that is a folly and it is one that is affecting families here in the UK but also families in the US and around the world,” Reeves said.
Unlike other countries, Britain has not announced new measures to support households grappling with the rise in the cost of fuel — up 19 percent for petrol and 34 percent for diesel since the war started, according to new statistics published Tuesday.
Reeves was due to use the IMF spring meetings to urge global leaders to take “coordinated economic action and supercharge the path to energy security”, according to a statement.
Starmer’s top team had been careful not to criticise Trump following his return to the White House last year, but the stance has shifted in recent months, notably over the US president’s threats over Greenland and then the Iran war.
On Monday, Starmer told parliament that Trump had been “wrong” to threaten to destroy Iran’s civilisation.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting on Sunday criticised Trump’s “incendiary, provocative, outrageous” language.
