President Trump says he plans to declare the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway that carries a fifth of the world’s oil and ranks as its most important energy chokepoint — “a territory of the United States” once the war with Iran is won.
“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 Friday at a Long Island rally for Republican gubernatorial and congressional candidates, according to the New York Post.
The vow would convert an American military victory in the nearly six-month conflict into permanent U.S. control of the oil and gas bottleneck — a maximalist move with real consequences for global energy markets. Trump acknowledged the war’s economic effects, but argued that ensuring Iran could never build a nuclear weapon was worth paying “a tiny little bit more for your gasoline.”
“When you have to pay a little bit more, you’re at $4. It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll never apologize. I did the right thing.”
Trump’s preliminary peace deal with Tehran — signed June 17 — collapsed last month after Iran attempted to assert control over the strait, including opening fire on commercial ships using a U.S.-approved sea lane along Oman’s coast. Back in March, the president floated renaming the waterway “the Strait of America” — or even after himself — after European and Asian allies balked at launching a joint effort to secure it.
Those allies were not spared on Friday. “You know, NATO was not there for us,” Trump told the crowd. “We paid all that money for so many decades. Money, money, money. Then we say, ‘Yeah, give us a hand.’ ‘Well, sir, we’d rather not.’ But we remember.”
The president also leaned into his case that Iran’s collapsing economy will finish what the military campaign started. “They have 350 percent inflation. Their currency is valueless,” he said, adding that Iranians had “nobody to negotiate with” — a jab following his recent broadsides at the “duplicitous” designees who had been talking with his special envoy Steve Witkoff.
And more pressure is on the way. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday night teased actions coming next week to dramatically tighten sanctions on Tehran — promising “measures like have never been seen in the history of economic isolation of a country.”
No president has ever proposed placing the strait itself under American sovereignty, and Trump offered no details on how a territorial declaration would work in practice. But the message to Tehran — and to the allies who sat this fight out — was unmistakable: the days of Iran holding the world’s oil supply hostage at Hormuz are ending, and Washington intends to be the one holding the keys when they do.
