Trump to declare Strait of Hormuz as US territory 'soon'
· RTE.ieUS President Donald Trump said he would "soon" declare the Strait of Hormuz part of US territory, claiming that Iran was being heavily defeated.
"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 said during a political rally at a police academy in New York state.
In response, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said that Iran would not be intimidated by threats or a show of force by the United States.
In a post on X, Mr Gharibabadi said that the strategic waterway would only be opened or closed under Iran's authority.
Mr Trump, together with Israel, launched a war against Iran on 28 February with the stated aims of ending the country's controversial nuclear programme and sparking a popular uprising.
However, Iran struck back by establishing de facto control over much of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passageway for large amounts of global energy and other commodity shipping.
The United States remains locked in a stalemate with Iran over the strait, with Iran denying access to much of the civilian shipping and the US Navy mounting a blockade of Iranian ports.
"We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to," Mr Trump told a cheering crowd of supporters.
It comes as transit through the vital waterway appeared to grind to a near standstill after two more ships were attacked there.
A senior Iranian source said that there had been no progress in talks to build on a June agreement to end the war.
As a ceasefire renewed then broke down, Iran has resumed attacks on ships it accuses of trying to transit the strait without its permission.
Two vessels from the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company were attacked transiting the strait yesterday evening, the United Arab Emirates state news agency WAM reported.
The UAE government blamed Iran, which made no immediate comment.
Nine vessels passed through the narrow waterway at the entrance to the Gulf yesterday, up from five on Wednesday but below the average of 12 for August, according to ship-tracking company Kpler.
There were no visible crossings by vessels seen early this morning, according to ship-tracking data.
Some ships may pass through undetected with their transponders off, but the figures are nowhere near the more than 130 ships that daily traversed the Strait of Hormuz before the war launched.
"Alongside the threat to energy infrastructure in the region, Iran's ability to restrict shipping through the strait is its main source of leverage in negotiations," said Torbjorn Solvedt, principal Middle East analyst with risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed Mr Trump's comments, telling reporters the US military has the capability to maintain a naval presence in the region to enforce its retaliatory blockade of Iran, which has inflicted severe economic damage on the country.
"Indefinitely the United States Navy can maintain a blockade like that because we'll rotate ships in and out, as we have, and we'll continue to," Mr Hegseth told reporters during a trip to Panama.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States planned to inflict more financial damage on Iran.
"Watch this space for more announcements coming next week because we are going to apply measures never seen in the history of economic isolation on a country," he said in an interview on Newsmax's 'Rob Schmitt Tonight’ programme.
Mr Trump is under pressure at home to end the unpopular war, with high fuel prices dragging down his approval ratings and potentially eroding his party's control of Congress in midterm elections in November.
Benchmark Brent futures and US West Texas Intermediate crude futures were both up slightly at about $87 (€75) and $81 (€70) a barrel respectively.
India's reliance on Russian crude surged to a record in July, while refineries in Asia, a major customer for fuel from the Gulf, bought US crude this week to ensure future supplies.
Iran has previously said it will not allow the waterway to reopen until its conditions are met.
These include removing economic sanctions and releasing frozen Iranian assets.
Yesterday, an Iranian parliamentary committee approved Iran's plan for the strait.
It includes a provision banning the transit of US, Israeli and other "hostile" countries' assets and equipment, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
The US lifted its blockade of Iran's shipping and ports for a month in mid-June but has since reimposed it, cutting off Iran's primary source of hard currency and compounding earlier losses from wartime strikes on its energy infrastructure.
The United States previously said it would lift the Iranian blockade once Iran and Oman, which sit on either side of the strait, reach an agreement to restore commercial shipping.
Mr Trump has also repeatedly threatened to escalate military strikes and "hit Iran hard", although he has thus far resisted deploying ground troops or seizing strategic islands and bombing desalination plants.
Earlier this week, Mr Trump suggested he would rely on economic means, rather than military action.
The US has tightened economic sanctions against Iran and other individuals and entities that it said are helping it procure weapons, but the pressure campaign has not brought Iran back to the negotiating table.
Reports that Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis had targeted a Saudi Aramco refinery with drones yesterday renewed concerns about a widening regional war.
Global economists have forecast a sharp drop in global growth, and potentially a swing into recession in some areas, warning that the impact would grow if the war was not ended soon.