{"id":220904,"date":"2026-08-17T04:09:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T04:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-threatens-to-make-the-strait-of-hormuz-a-us-territory-can-he-al-jazeera\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T04:09:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T04:09:19","slug":"trump-threatens-to-make-the-strait-of-hormuz-a-us-territory-can-he-al-jazeera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-threatens-to-make-the-strait-of-hormuz-a-us-territory-can-he-al-jazeera\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump threatens to make the Strait of Hormuz a US territory: Can he? – Al Jazeera"},"content":{"rendered":"

US president has yet another outlandish threat for Iran, with no end to war in sight.<\/em>
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President Donald Trump on Friday said he would designate the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the United States \u201cpretty soon\u201d as the status of the waterway, a global chokepoint through which a fifth of global oil and gas passes, remains under a military and diplomatic deadlock.
Iran has fired back, dubbing Trump\u2019s threats as \u201cnonsense\u201d as the memorandum of understanding signed between the two in June expires on Sunday.
Tehran has blocked the passage to leverage it as a global economy kill switch, while Washington has maintained a military naval blockade against Iran\u2019s ports, choking its economy further.
In the apparent game of who blinks first \u2013 though Trump says negotiation with Iran \u201cis like chess\u201d \u2013 the US president\u2019s military rhetoric has also followed a pattern throughout the ongoing war, which began on February 28. On many occasions, he has threatened to attack Iran only to pull back at the eleventh hour.
So, can the US actually make the Strait of Hormuz its territory? And what does that even mean?
\u201cAfter we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I\u2019ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,\u201d Trump said during a speech at a police academy in New York.
Referring to the naval blockade, Trump went a step further to suggest that the Strait of Hormuz is already a US territory. \u201cEssentially, that\u2019s what it is,\u201d he added.
\u201cWe have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to,\u201d he said.
Iran maintains that it controls the waterway \u2014 and despite the US claims, some vessels have transited the passage despite the blockade, maritime navigation data shows.
\u201cIt\u2019s clear the US president, with a chuckle as he said that, even himself, is not taking this particularly seriously,\u201d said Al Jazeera\u2019s Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington, DC.
\u201cThese are the territorial waters of Iran and Oman. But what the US president likes to do is get under the skin of adversaries, and, in this case, it\u2019s Iran,\u201d she said.
\u201cWhat we should point out, though, is what the US president is not backing down on is the fact that there is a naval blockade by the United States in effect in the Strait of Hormuz, and that is ongoing.
Several Iranian officials have sharply reacted to Trump\u2019s remarks. The head of the judiciary came out with furious rhetoric, calling the US president criminal and feather-headed, his remarks \u201cnonsense\u201d and saying the Strait of Hormuz belongs to Iran.
Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran\u2019s deputy foreign minister, also responded, saying, \u201cThe Strait of Hormuz cannot be seized by tweet, nor by aircraft carrier, nor by issuing an order, nor by an election speech.\u201d
\u201cThe Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian; this strait will only be closed and opened under Iran\u2019s command, and as long as you do not accept the reality of defeat and cease your fanciful delusions, Iran will continue to enforce the blockade,\u201d he added.
Meanwhile, Iran has been holding talks with Oman, the only other coastal country in the strait, to reach a settlement on the management of maritime traffic in the strait. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in comments carried by the Iranian Students\u2019 News Agency, said negotiations between Tehran and Muscat \u201cmay reach a conclusion soon\u201d.
The reopening of the waterway, however, is a separate issue, Araghchi said, where Washington has to adhere to promises made in the June memorandum of understanding, including removal of the naval blockade and sanctions on Iran.
That is the new Iranian position on the ongoing war, where Tehran is now seeking these US concessions for mere reopening of the waterway, which were originally conditions for ending the war.
\"INTERACTIVE
First, sovereignty does not exchange hands over a mere unilateral presidential proclamation.
For instance, Trump had earlier threatened to send US boots to Iran\u2019s Kharg Island to take over the key Iranian oil export hub in the Gulf. Tehran then responded by saying that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would be waiting for them, \u201cwith fingers on the trigger\u201d. Trump had previously also threatened to take over Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.
Bruce Fein, associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, says Trump is constitutionally powerless to annex on his own.
\u201cA treaty ratified by the Senate or statute is constitutionally required to annex territory, as with the Louisiana Purchase or annexation of Hawaii or Panama Canal or acquisition of Puerto Rico or the Philippines in ending the Spanish-American War.
If he goes ahead with annexation, Fein says, it would \u201cconstitute the crime of aggressive war under international law, including the UN Charter\u201d.
Natalie Klein, a specialist in international law and associate dean at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, said, \u201cEssentially the only way Trump\u2019s claim could have any plausibility under international law would be if the US was asserting control over the Strait as an occupying power perhaps comparable to the authority the US exercised over Japan immediately after World War II.\u201d
\u201cBut in that scenario, the US would need to have military control over Iran or at least its coastal areas.\u201d
Trump\u2019s war on Iran is also widely unpopular in the US, where the president and his fellow Republicans are seeking to defend their narrow congressional majorities in November\u2019s midterm elections. Barely 35 percent of Americans approve of the war, according to a Reuters\/Ipsos poll.
Several US media publications have reported that Washington is running short on munitions, including the crucial Patriot antimissile interceptor. Petrol prices have also increased, and are now averaging more than $4 a gallon \u2013 a major issue for Americans.
Last week, US Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration\u2019s top priority in the war was to control increasing petrol prices, while stopping Iran\u2019s supposed race to a nuclear weapon now comes second.
Tehran has also attacked its neighbours in the Gulf, which analysts say are aimed at forcing the regional countries to push Washington into a corner at the negotiating table.<\/p>\n

Even Iran does not enjoy unfettered sovereignty over the strait as a whole, under international laws, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), but only some coastal sites near its own borders.
The UNCLOS recognises coastal-state sovereignty over territorial waters, but limits that territorial sea to 12 nautical miles (22km), and notes that ships enjoy a right of passage that \u201cshall not be impeded\u201d.
The Strait of Hormuz is in international waters, sandwiched between the coasts of Iran and Oman. At its narrowest point, the strait is only about 21 nautical miles (39km) wide \u2014 and the two countries\u2019 12-nautical mile territorial seas overlap across it.
While neither the US nor Iran has ratified UNCLOS, the convention\u2019s rules on international straits are widely regarded as customary law.
Paul Musgrave, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, said Trump usually makes such statements primarily to speak to a US audience, especially his support base.
It is important to remember, he added, that Trump is a product of US reality TV and is, at the end of the day, a \u201cshowman\u201d.
\u201cThis is a guy who speaks big. You have to take him seriously in some cases but not literally,\u201d Musgrave cautioned.
Trump cannot be taken seriously, especially in this case because making the strait US territory is physically and legally impossible, he said. But the statements do show that Trump is determined not to back down from Iran and accept defeat in the months-long war, he added.<\/p>\n

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US president has yet another outlandish threat for Iran, with no end to war in sight.SaveSharePresident Donald Trump on Friday said he would designate the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the United States \u201cpretty soon\u201d as the status of the waterway, a global chokepoint through which a fifth of global oil and gas passes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":220905,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}