US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had an interview with American journalist Ben Shapiro and spoke about US policy towards Iran during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The interview has been published on the US State Department website.

“Ben, the President and his team’s been working on the problem set in the Islamic Republic of Iran. We identified them early on as the largest force for instability in the Middle East. There’s many challenges there, but it has been this country that has been the world’s largest state sponsor of terror for many, many years. So our mission set was very clear,” Pompeo noted.

According to the Secretary of State, the US began by breaking the nuclear deal with Iran.

“We began by tearing up the Iran nuclear deal – it was a disaster in many dimensions – and we began to strip away the things that provided resources for the Iranian regime. That’s different from humanitarian systems when the COVID situation broke out; the United States immediately offered to provide humanitarian assistance to Iran. Not surprisingly, perhaps the regime that cares less about its people than it does about fomenting terror around the world, rejected the U.S. offer of help. And so the effort must continue. We have to continue to deny this regime the capacity to inflict harm around the world.”

However, he noted that this is also connected with China.

“This is connected to China, too. China has been one of the countries that has continued to take oil from Iran, even in light of the terror campaign that they have engaged in. The Iranians even today are working alongside the Chinese on a disinformation campaign. Authoritarian regimes in times of crisis tend to work together.”

At the same time, the US Secretary of State accused Iran and China of working together on a ‘disinformation campaign.’