On 14 August, President Donald Trump stated that he would ‘soon’ declare the Strait of Hormuz part of US territory, suggesting that this would happen once the United States had ‘finished crushing Iran’.
“Once we have finished crushing Iran, which will suffer a very heavy defeat, very soon I will declare the Strait of Hormuz to be US territory,” he said during a rally in New York State.
The President also claimed that Washington has complete control over the waterway, stating that “no ship will pass” unless US troops allow them to pass through the key transit route, which prior to the war accounted for around a fifth of global oil and gas supplies.
Last week, a dispute flared up between Washington and Tehran over who controls the Strait of Hormuz, with the Iranian military denying Trump’s claims of US control and asserting that Iran continues to regulate traffic through the waterway.
Commenting on Trump’s latest statement, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Garibabadi said that Tehran would not be intimidated by threats or displays of force from Washington. On social media platform X, Garibabadi added that the strategic waterway would be opened or closed only with Iran’s consent.