Trump says he will declare Strait of Hormuz a US ‘territory’ amid Iran war

xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogleAdd Al Jazeera on GoogleinfoUS President Donald Trump gestures as he departs the Nassau County Police Academy Center for Training and Intelligence in New York on August 14 [Kent Nishimura/AFP]By Al Jazeera StaffPublished On 14 Aug 202614 Aug 2026United States President Donald Trump has announced plans to declare the Strait of Hormuz a “territory” of his country as tensions boil with Iran.

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.

“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,” Trump said, with a chuckle.

Since February 28, the US and Israel have been at war with Iran, after launching a series of aggressive strikes.

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

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.

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’s terms was for Iran to make its “best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels”.

Both sides later claimed violations of the memorandum, and fighting resumed by the end of the month.

The US and Iran have settled into a pattern of uneasy negotiations 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.

Iran 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.

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

In Friday’s 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.

“You just have to remember that what we’re doing is a great service for the world. Not only for ourselves, for the world,” he said. “The blockade is unstoppable. It’s a wall of steel.”

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.

At the rally, Trump repeated his declarations of victory over Iran, even though the war has continued with no clear end in sight.

The war remains widely unpopular in the US. A Quinnipiac University poll from late July found that 60 percent of US voters oppose US military action against Iran.

Media reports have also suggested that the US may face limited options for further military escalation due to strain on munitions stockpiles.

Trump’s latest remarks are likely to stir the continuing tensions with Iran. Already, Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, responded on social media with defiance.

“Trump said that, after Iran’s defeat, he will soon declare the Strait of Hormuz as American territory,” Gharibabadi wrote.

“The 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.”

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 “guardian” of the Strait of Hormuz while collecting a 20 percent fee on any products that pass through the waterway.

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

Friday’s remarks are not the first time Trump has suggested expanding the US’s territories either.

In his second inaugural address in 2025, Trump laid out a vision of the US as “a growing nation”, and he has proceeded to put pressure on places like Canada and Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, to cede their sovereignty.

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.

In a separate Newsmax interview, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also suggested that the US may unveil new economic measures to further damage Iran’s economy in the coming days.