Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bagaei said: "When US Secretary of State Rubio accused Iran of attacking ships, he said: 'We have never seen anything like this since World War II and Caribbean piracy.' On May 1, 2026, when the US president boasted about seizing merchant ships and confiscating oil cargo, he said: 'We are like pirates, just a little bit like pirates.' The president may not be too happy to know that his secretary of state has so quickly forgotten that the president himself once proudly claimed to act like a pirate."