President Donald Trump said Thursday that one of his guiding principles during the Iran conflict was avoiding the kind of economic collapse he associates with former President Herbert Hoover, arguing that keeping the Strait of Hormuz open prevented oil prices from soaring to levels that could have triggered a global depression.

“I’ve always said, I don’t want to be a president with a depression on his resume,” Trump said during a wide-ranging Oval Office interview on CNBC.

“I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover. Of almost all presidents, some have been bad, some have been good, very few have been great.

“But I never want to be Herbert Hoover because Herbert Hoover was the president that probably took us into the Great Depression, the greatest depression, led the whole world there.

“He raised interest rates and he raised taxes simultaneously. I guess he was trying to do something, but that didn’t work out too well,” Trump said.

Trump pivoted to Iran, saying that if he had allowed the Strait of Hormuz to remain closed, oil could have reached $300 to $350 a barrel, producing a global depression.

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