World
Trump says he will declare the Strait of Hormuz United States territory once Iran is defeated
By Staff Writer | 15 August 2026
The president told a rally in New York state on Friday that the declaration would come soon and that no ship passes the American blockade without permission. Within hours Iran's deputy foreign minister said the waterway would be opened or closed on Iran's authority alone.
The United States president said on Friday that he intends to declare the Strait of Hormuz American territory once the war against Iran is over, a claim over the busiest oil route in the world that neither party to the conflict currently controls outright.
He was speaking at a political rally at a police academy in Garden City, in New York state. He said the declaration would follow the defeat of Iran, and added afterwards that he meant it.
pretty soon I'll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States
Donald Trump, President of the United States
On the blockade of Iranian ports that the American navy has maintained through the summer, he told the crowd: "We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to."
What Tehran said in reply
Iran's deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, responded early on Saturday. He said Tehran would not be intimidated by threats or by a show of force, and that the strait would be opened or closed under Iran's authority and nobody else's. That is a claim by the Iranian government about a waterway whose status in international law rests on the right of transit passage, and it is reported here as their claim.
Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, said separately that no decision had been taken on resuming negotiations with Washington.
Who controls what
The war began on 28 February, launched by the United States alongside Israel, with the stated aims of ending Iran's nuclear programme and prompting a popular rising against the government in Tehran. Neither has happened. What did happen is that Iran established practical control over much of the strait and turned it into the first item on the negotiating agenda, while the United States navy blockaded Iranian ports in an attempt to break the economy behind it.
United States Central Command said that as of 14 August its forces had redirected 62 commercial vessels, disabled three and boarded two while enforcing that blockade.
The traffic figures show what the stalemate costs. Before the war, between 100 and 140 vessels a day passed through the strait carrying roughly a fifth of the world's seaborne oil. On Thursday the confirmed count was 13, which was a rise of 44 per cent on the day before and still left the route running at about a tenth of its normal volume. Seven vessels entered the Arabian Gulf and six left. Nine of the 13 used the unilateral routing scheme Iran has imposed, none was confirmed through the standard traffic separation scheme, and four could not be assigned to either.
Why the claim matters beyond the rhetoric
A declaration of territory over an international strait would have no obvious foundation in the law of the sea, and the president gave no mechanism for it. What the remark does is confirm that the object of the war has moved. It began as a campaign about a nuclear programme. It is now a contest over who admits ships to a waterway, conducted by blockade on one side and by routing instructions on the other, with commercial operators choosing between two authorities that each say the other has no standing to give orders.
For anyone with cargo, plant or personnel moving through the Gulf, the operative fact is not the constitutional argument. It is that thirteen crossings a day is the new normal, that nine in thirteen of them accepted Iranian routing, and that both governments now describe permission to sail as theirs to grant.
The president also asked voters to accept somewhat higher pump prices as the cost of keeping Iran from a nuclear weapon. His vice president had said the day before that cheap fuel was the first war aim and the nuclear programme the second. Both statements were made within 24 hours.