Trump signals plan to claim Hormuz ‘soon’

AI Summary

US President Donald Trump declared plans to soon claim the Strait of Hormuz as US territory following the defeat of Iran. This follows repeated attacks on oil tankers by Iran in the strategic waterway, causing a near standstill in maritime traffic and prompting international condemnation from Gulf states.

• Urges Americans to accept higher gas prices to stop Iran going nuclear • UAE accuses Tehran of attacking two vessels; shipping in the strait comes to near standstill • Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Doha condemn strikes, demand unconditional return to free navigation • Houthis strike Saudi oil site, Yemen’s Mocha port; eight killed • JD Vance confirms keeping US energy prices down is ‘goal number one’; Bessent vows sanctions ‘world has never seen’ against Tehran GARDEN CITY: US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would “soon” declare the strategic Strait of Hormuz a US territory once Iran is defeated, even as fresh attacks on Emirati oil tankers brought maritime traffic in the vital waterway to a near standstill. Trump’s remarks at a New York rally underscored the escalating international struggle over the narrow corridor, where a grinding stalemate of retaliatory blockades has shifted Washington’s immediate wartime focus from containing Iran’s nuclear programme to preventing an energy crisis that could hit Americans at the pump. “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 with a chuckle during an appearance at a police academy in New York state. “It’s true.” “We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to,” Trump told a cheering crowd of supporters and police. He urged Americans to accept slightly higher gasoline prices as the cost of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Trump said Americans who had to “pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline” should remember that this was the cost of ensuring “a very evil country” could not have a nuclear weapon. “What we’re doing is a great service for the world, not only for ourselves … and we’re really doing a great job,” said Trump, adding he would never apologise for attacking Iran. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates accused Iran on Friday of attacking two state-owned commercial vessels transiting the strategic waterway. The UAE foreign ministry condemned what it described as a “hostile Iranian attack” on two vessels affiliated with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), saying there were no injuries. ADNOC confirmed the vessels had been attacked on Thursday evening but said the incidents had been brought under control, according to the state news agency WAM. Britain’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations later reported two nearly identical drone strikes on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, causing minor damage. The incidents came just days after ADNOC said three of its tankers had also been attacked in the same waterway. The latest attacks appeared to have an immediate impact on shipping. Vessel-tracking data from Kpler suggested traffic through the strait had slowed dramatically on Friday, with only two non-oil vessels passing through and no crude shipments visible. With commercial transit severely disrupted, the United States vowed to maintain an indefinite naval blockade of Iranian ports and unleash historic economic pressure on Tehran. “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,” US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters during a trip to Panama. Iran, meanwhile, has sought to use the strait as its strongest bargaining chip. By disrupting commercial shipping and threatening global oil supplies, Tehran has shifted the conflict from the battlefield to the world’s energy markets. “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. That leverage was reflected in unusually candid remarks from Vice-President JD Vance, who acknowledged that keeping fuel prices low had overtaken Iran’s nuclear ambitions as Washington’s most immediate concern. “I know that oil is down today and it’s way down from the highs in the early days of the conflict,” Vance said on Fox News. “That’s goal number one — keep oil and gas cheap for Americans all over our country. And then obviously goal number two is ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.” Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States planned to inflict more financial damage on Iran, threatening to subject Tehran to economic isolation “like the world has never seen before”. “Watch this space for more announcements next week because we are going to apply measures like have never been seen in the history of economic isolation of a country,” he said in an interview. The remarks underscored how dramatically the conflict has evolved. What began as a campaign centred on preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon — consistently touted by President Don