HOUSTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised Tuesday to use booming U.S. oil and gas production and exports as a diplomatic tool to pressure bad acting regimes in Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China, and others.

Pompeo, in a speech before a friendly audience at the CERAWeek by IHS Markit energy industry conference in Houston, called on foreign allies to purchase U.S. energy to replace supplies from adversarial governments that use their oil and gas supply as leverage for “malign ends.”

“Some nations are using their energy for malign ends and not to promote prosperity the way we do here in the West," Pompeo said. "We're not just exporting American energy. We are exporting our commercial value system to friends and partners. The more we can export free enterprise, rule of law ... and transparency the more successful the United States will be and secure the American people will be.”

He said the U.S. would continue its aggressive sanctions campaign against Venezuela and Iran, historically two of OPEC’s top oil producers.

“We have every intention of driving Iranian oil exports to zero as quickly as we can,” Pompeo said.

The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on countries that buy oil from Iran, and will reconsider in May whether to continue granting exemptions to countries heavily reliant on crude from Tehran, such as China and India. It has also sanctioned Venezuela’s state oil company in a bid to kill the main funding source of the socialist regime of Nicolas Maduro.

"We are committed to using all economic tools in Venezuela,” Pompeo said.

Pompeo also urged Germany to halt its planned Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would transport natural gas from Russia.

Russia is a top supplier of natural gas to Europe because of its cheap price, which the Trump administration is seeking to change by encouraging the export of U.S. natural gas to the continent now that America is the top producer of that fuel.

“We don't want our allies hooked on Russian gas,” Pompeo said.

Pompeo credited innovation from shale boom producers with helping the U.S. become the world’s most prolific oil and gas producer, but warned “there is no certainty” that free markets will allow for America to export that energy abroad, in an apparent broadside against regulations and efforts by progressives to eliminate fossil fuels.

"For the rest of my lifetime, the world will need oil and gas," he said.

But Pompeo also highlighted the progress of wind and solar energy, with its falling prices, saying, “We should not forget about the incredible growth in renewable energy.”

“My expectation for you is you will go out and crush it every day,” he told his audience full of energy industry executives. “If we give you a chance to compete, you will excel.”