Trump claims Strait of Hormuz is 'American territory' as Iran tensions escalate

Donald Trump stood before a crowd in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on Friday and made a claim that would have seemed unthinkable weeks earlier: the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most critical shipping lanes, belongs to America. "I view the Strait of Hormuz as an American territory right now," he said at the rally. "It's an American territory."

The statement capped a day of escalating rhetoric from the president aimed squarely at Iran. Earlier, speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews before his flight south, Trump had already asserted that the United States maintained "total control" of the region surrounding the strait. He framed it as part of a broader American dominance: control of the border, control of the blockade, control of everything touching that narrow waterway that funnels roughly a fifth of the world's oil through its channels.

Trump's language reflected a hardening posture on Iran's nuclear program. "We cannot let them have a nuclear weapon," he said, warning of "very bad things" if Tehran succeeded in acquiring one. He claimed that American intervention had already stopped Iran's nuclear ambitions and would continue to do so. "They will never have a nuclear weapon," he declared.

Yet beneath the certainty lay a curious asymmetry. Trump suggested that Iran desperately wanted to negotiate—that Tehran was eager to cut a deal. But Washington, he implied, was in no rush. Iran had not yet agreed to terms the administration found acceptable. "They would love to make a deal, but they're not ready to make the right deal in my opinion," Trump said. The message was clear: Iran needs this negotiation more than America does.

To reinforce the point about American territorial claims, Trump posted an AI-generated image to his Truth Social platform depicting the Strait of Hormuz labeled as "NEW U.S. TERRITORY." The image was a visual punctuation mark on his verbal assertion—a way of making the claim stick in the minds of his supporters and, presumably, in the minds of Iranian decision-makers.

Iran's response came swiftly and with unmistakable contempt. Kazem Gharibabadi, the country's deputy foreign minister, dismissed Trump's understanding of the strait's status as delusional. He suggested, in a post on X, that Trump's delusion would be corrected—either by the force of events or by Iran itself. Gharibabadi noted, with a touch of sarcasm, that Trump had at least gotten one thing right: he had correctly referred to the body of water as the Persian Gulf rather than the Arabian Gulf, a naming convention Iran has long insisted upon. But on the question of American sovereignty over the strait, Gharibabadi made clear that Iran would not accept the premise.

The Strait of Hormuz has become the central geographic flashpoint in the confrontation between Washington and Tehran. The waterway is narrow, confined, and irreplaceable—roughly 21 percent of the world's petroleum passes through it. Any disruption to traffic there ripples across global energy markets and touches the economies of nations far removed from the Middle East. Control of the strait means leverage over the world's energy supply. Trump's claim to American control was, in that sense, a claim to something far larger than a stretch of water.