Iran has rejected President Donald Trump’s threat to declare the strategic Strait of Hormuz US territory, with Tehran insisting the waterway remains under Iranian control and vowing to maintain its blockade until Washington accepts defeat.
This handout photograph taken and released by the Iranian Foreign Ministry on June 16, 2026, shows Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi speaking about the agreement reached with the United States.
Iran on Saturday fired back at US President Donald Trump’s claim that he would soon declare the Strait of Hormuz part of US territory, saying the crucial energy waterway it has blockaded “will remain Iranian”.
Trump has repeatedly said the strait, which Tehran effectively closed at the start of the Middle East war in late February, is under US control — an assertion the Islamic republic denies.
“The Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said on X.
“This strait will only be closed and opened under Iran’s command.”
Trump told a political rally in New York state on Friday that after the US defeats Iran, “pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States”.
It’s true,” he added.
An unnamed White House official later clarified that Trump was joking, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Last week, a top Iranian official laid out a laundry list of conditions for reopening the strait, including an end to the “war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq”.
Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr also demanded the end of crippling sanctions, the release of frozen assets and compensation for wartime damage.
Mourners carry the bodies of members of Iraq’s Hashed al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) who were killed earlier in Diyala in central Iraq by US-Saudi strikes, during the funeral in Baghdad on July 29, 2026. (Photo by Murtadha Ridha / AFP)
Ongoing Attacks
As diplomacy stalls between the decades-long foes, attacks in the Hormuz Strait have continued, highlighting the continued risks to regional shipping.
United Arab Emirates’ state-owned oil giant ADNOC said Saturday one of its vessels came under attack the night before.
On Friday, the Gulf nation blamed Iran for other attacks on two vessels linked to ADNOC as they passed through the strait.
Such attacks led to the collapse of an April ceasefire between the United States and Iran.
As Iran throttles traffic in Hormuz, its Houthi allies in Yemen have also declared a parallel maritime blockade on Saudi ports in the Red Sea, the oil-exporting giant’s only other maritime route.
A June deal between Washington and Tehran — meant to serve as a jumping-off point for negotiations on a permanent settlement — had said Iran and Oman would hash out future arrangements for the strait in discussion with other Gulf countries and “in line with the applicable international law”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives at the White House on July 28, 2026, in Washington, DC. Netanyahu is meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on the ongoing war in Iran. (Photo by Andrew Harnik / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)
Before the war, Hormuz carried around a fifth of the world’s oil and LNG exports, and prices have repeatedly surged since the dispute over the waterway erupted, piling economic and political pressure on Washington.
Iran wants to control the strait and charge tolls, powers it did not exercise before the war and a development that the US would fiercely oppose.
A file photo of a vessel around the Strait of Hormuz
The closure of Hormuz has driven up prices for American voters, creating a political headache for Trump as November’s midterm elections near.
US Vice President JD Vance said this week that Washington’s top priority in the Iran war was keeping energy prices low for Americans, with preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon ranking second.
Tehran signalled last week that it had agreed with Oman a route for ships to transit the strait and was finalising arrangements to jointly manage the waterway.
The US has imposed its own retaliatory blockade of Iranian ports in an attempt to cripple its economy.
“We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to,” Trump said to a cheering crowd of supporters on Friday.
AFP
