U.S. President, Donald Trump, on Thursday said he will hold Iran responsible for any future Houthi attacks on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea.

The Tehran-backed militant group claimed responsibility for the attacks on the two Saudi oil tankers.

The warning came as Yemen’s Houthis threatened to open a new front in the Middle East conflict, while the U.S. continued its strikes on Iran.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump said the U.S. attacked the Houthis “very powerfully” a year ago for disrupting global trade by shooting ships.

“Since that time, and during our conflict with Iran, they have acted very responsibly. Unfortunately, now they are starting up again, shooting at two Saudi Arabian ships last night,” Mr Trump wrote.

“Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if they do this again, the U.S. will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves, who I am very disappointed with in that they have, until now, acted very professionally and smart,” he added.

The two Saudi oil tankers are named Encelia and Layla.

Yemen’s Houthis on Wednesday claimed to have targeted the oil tankers with drones and missiles, alleging that the vessels had violated their maritime blockade.

The U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that Iran was still not ready to make a deal “at least not one they are willing to live by.”

“They are going to continue to pay a price and every night the price gets higher and higher and higher,” Mr Rubio said.

Asked for his reaction to Houthi-claimed attacks on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, Mr Rubio said, “I hope that they will stop. They shouldn’t really do that. They got suckered into this by the Iranians.”