{"id":813934,"date":"2026-08-15T00:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T00:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/813934\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T00:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T00:50:14","slug":"trump-says-he-will-declare-strait-of-hormuz-a-us-territory-amid-iran-war-us-israel-war-on-iran-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/813934\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says he will declare Strait of Hormuz a US \u2018territory\u2019 amid Iran war | US-Israel war on Iran News"},"content":{"rendered":"

United States President Donald Trump has announced plans to\u00a0declare the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> a \u201cterritory\u201d of his country as tensions boil with Iran.<\/p>\n

Speaking in New York on Friday, Trump told supporters that the US would soon claim the vital waterway, which is critical for the global supply of oil, natural gas and fertiliser.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I\u2019ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,\u201d Trump said, with a chuckle.<\/p>\n

Since February 28, the US and Israel have been at war with Iran, after launching a series of aggressive strikes.<\/p>\n

But Iran responded by restricting traffic through the strait, which formerly served as an artery for roughly 20 percent of the global oil supply.<\/p>\n

The strait was unrestricted before the war, but control over the waterway is now a major sticking point in ceasefire negotiations between the US and Iran.<\/p>\n

It has also been the site of renewed fighting in recent months. In June, the US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to bring a stop to military operations in the war, but one of the agreement\u2019s terms was for Iran to make its \u201cbest efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels\u201d.<\/p>\n

Both sides later claimed violations of the memorandum, and fighting resumed<\/a> by the end of the month.<\/p>\n

The US and Iran have settled into a pattern of uneasy negotiations<\/a> that have brought down the intensity of fighting across the Middle East, but have failed to satisfy either side or bring the war to a decisive end.<\/p>\n

Iran<\/a> has continued to target commercial vessels in the strait, claiming that part of the strait falls within its territorial waters and therefore remains under its control.<\/p>\n

The US, meanwhile, has established its own blockade<\/a> in the strait. Just this week, it fired on a cargo vessel<\/a> it accused of attempting to reach Iranian ports.<\/p>\n

In Friday\u2019s speech, delivered to a gathering of law enforcement officials, Trump touted the blockade as impenetrable, and he framed it as a public service for countries that rely on traffic through the strait.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just have to remember that what we\u2019re doing is a great service for the world. Not only for ourselves, for the world,\u201d he said. \u201cThe blockade is unstoppable. It\u2019s a wall of steel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump was in New York to support Republican candidates for the 2026 midterm elections, a pivotal moment for his administration. Republican control of the US Congress hangs in the balance.<\/p>\n

At the rally,\u00a0Trump repeated his declarations of victory over Iran, even though the war has continued with no clear end in sight.<\/p>\n

The war remains widely unpopular<\/a> in the US. A Quinnipiac University poll from late July found that 60 percent of US voters oppose US military action against Iran.<\/p>\n

Media reports have also suggested that the US may face limited options for further military escalation due to strain on munitions stockpiles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s latest remarks are likely to stir the continuing tensions with Iran. Already, Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran\u2019s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, responded on social media with defiance.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump said that, after Iran\u2019s defeat, he will soon declare the Strait of Hormuz as American territory,\u201d Gharibabadi wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Strait of Hormuz cannot be taken over by a tweet, nor by an aircraft carrier, nor by issuing a decree, nor by an election speech. Iran is neither afraid of threats nor intimidated by a show of force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Iran and the US have floated the idea of imposing tolls on commercial traffic in the strait. Last month, for instance, Trump suggested the US could become the \u201cguardian\u201d of the Strait of Hormuz while collecting a 20 percent fee on any products that pass through the waterway.<\/p>\n

Legal experts, however, say that such tolls would be illegal under international law, which largely protects the free transit of commercial maritime vessels.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s remarks are not the first time Trump has suggested expanding the US\u2019s territories either.<\/p>\n

In his second inaugural address in 2025, Trump laid out a vision of the US as \u201ca growing nation\u201d, and he has proceeded to put pressure on places like Canada and Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, to cede their sovereignty.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Friday, Trump told Fox News he would use economic leverage to weaken and isolate Iran, which has already been under heavy US sanctions for decades.<\/p>\n

In a separate Newsmax interview, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also suggested that the US may unveil new economic measures to further damage Iran\u2019s economy in the coming days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United States President Donald Trump has announced plans to\u00a0declare the Strait of Hormuz a \u201cterritory\u201d of his country…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,1127,12,2420,3,111,21,19,22,20,25,1209,231941,24],"class_list":["post-813934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-conflict","tag-donald-trump","tag-government","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-canada","tag-us-israel-war-on-iran","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}