Trump Says He Will Declare the Strait of Hormuz a U.S. Territory Once Iran Is Defeated

At an event for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman in Garden City, New York, on Friday, Aug. 14, President Trump said he intends to declare the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the United States. "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," he told a crowd of law enforcement officers. "We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to." He also asked listeners to accept gasoline above $4 a gallon: "I'll never apologize."

The strait is a waterway bordered by Iran and Oman that carried roughly a fifth of the world's energy supplies before the war. No treaty, statute or proclamation was cited to support a claim of American sovereignty over it. Asserting a territorial claim over foreign waters from a campaign stage, with no stated legal basis and no consultation with Congress or the bordering states, marks another shift in the administration's war aims.

No executive order or proclamation followed. Traffic through the strait remains a fraction of prewar levels, and Iran says the route will not reopen until its demands are met.