New York: US President Donald Trump said he plans to declare the Strait of Hormuz a “territory” of the United States once the ongoing war with Iran concludes.
Speaking at the David S. Mack Center for Training and Intelligence in New York on Friday, Trump told a crowd of law enforcement officers, “After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States.” The remark drew a resounding cheer from the audience.
Since February 28, the United States and Israel have been at war with Iran, following a series of strikes aimed at halting Tehran’s nuclear program and encouraging an internal uprising against the government. Iran responded by restricting traffic through the strait, a waterway that previously carried roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply.
Control over the strait has since become a central sticking point in ceasefire negotiations between the two countries. Trump repeatedly highlighted the naval blockade the US has enforced in the strait since July, when it was reinstated following the collapse of an earlier truce amid mutual accusations of violations. “We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to,” he said, describing the American military as “unbelievable” and calling the blockade “a wall of steel.”
Iranian officials rejected the claim outright. Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, said the strait “cannot be seized by tweet, nor by aircraft carrier, nor by issuing an order, nor by an election speech,” adding that Iran “neither fears threats nor cowers before displays of power.” He said the strait “has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian,” and would open or close only on Iran’s command.
Trump’s assertion comes despite the fact that Oman and Iran jointly hold jurisdiction over the waterway, which lies between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, with Iran on its northern coast and Oman on its southern coast. He did not explain how the United States would establish a territorial claim over a strait it does not currently control.
Separately, Trump said he has pressed other nations that rely heavily on Middle Eastern crude to help protect and police the strait themselves, arguing that the US does not depend on it given its own domestic oil access. He noted that China draws about 90 percent of its oil through the strait, while American reliance on it remains minimal.