Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that economic pressure is the United States’ “most effective tool” against Iran but noted that it’s a “delicate dance.”

“The most effective tool that we have is the economic pressure we can apply to them. And this is a delicate dance, because we apply economic pressure to them, they’re going to try to apply economic pressure to us,” Vance said on the “Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.”

He added: “What has been true over the last couple of weeks is they have felt a lot more pressure than we have.”

Vance acknowledged that “obviously oil prices are elevated, which people see at the pump,” but he touted the administration’s ability to get vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.

“They are trying to close the Strait down, and if we can, you know, not even get it back to where it was before, but if we can get enough oil and gas out to give some Americans some, some ease at the pump, some ease on energy prices,” Vance added.

“Meanwhile, the Iranians are punished for shooting at commercial ships. That just applies a lot of economic pressure to them, and that changes their calculus for you know what kind of a deal they want to make.”

Applying that pressure, Vance said, is the best way to achieve the “final objective” — Iran not being able to rebuild its nuclear capacity.

“What we are trying to do is create a changed reality on the ground, where not just we can say with confidence their facilities have been destroyed; we can also say with confidence they’re never going to try to rebuild, and that’s the phase that we’re in now,” he said.

- CNN