President Trump on Monday said making the Strait of Hormuz a U.S. territory would be a “great idea,” repeating a proposal he floated in a speech a few days ago.
Mr. Trump said he is basing the concept on America’s relative control of the Middle East waterway.
“I just think it’s a great idea,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office. “I mean, we control it. We control it with the blockade.”
“I like the idea of declaring it a territory,” he said.
There is no indication the U.S. would actually move to make the strait, an oil chokepoint between Iran and Oman, an American possession. But Mr. Trump’s rhetoric is causing a stir. The president first proposed the idea during an unrelated speech about crime on Friday.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, writing on social media, said the strait “cannot be seized with a tweet, nor with an aircraft carrier, nor by issuing an order, nor through an election speech.”
Mr. Trump, working with Israel, launched airstrikes against Iran on Feb. 28 to prevent the Islamic regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Iran retaliated by clamping down on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, resulting in nearly six months of violence, negotiations and economic pressure tactics.
Mr. Trump says the U.S. blockade is tantamount to control of the strait, which before the war carried about 20% of the world’s oil shipments.
Iran “can be a nuisance,” Mr. Trump said Monday. “They can put a mine in the water, and people don’t like having mines hit their billion-dollar ship. But the blockade has been very effective.”
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