Trump delivers Iran a gut punch with new declaration he's making the Strait of Hormuz a US territory

By ELINA SHIRAZI, US SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER Published: 21:19, 14 August 2026 | Updated: 21:28, 14 August 2026 President Donald Trump just announced plans to declare the Strait of Hormuz a US territory following the defeat of Iran. 'Pretty soon, I'll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States... we have the blockade… no ships get through unless we want them to,' Trump declared at a Garden City rally. Trump told a crowd of law enforcement officers that the war in the Middle East is still not over. 'We have to make a little journey to the Middle East because we have to put out a potential disaster, a potential very big fire, a fire like you've never seen. We can't let Iran keep going,' Trump said during the rally, adding once again that they can 'never have a nuclear weapon.'  Before the US launched military strikes against Iran earlier this year, the Strait of Hormuz served as a vital shipping lane for global oil.  Since the onset of the conflict, maritime traffic through the narrow waterway has ground to a near-total halt, making transit rights a key sticking point in US–Iran peace negotiations.  Speaking to supporters on Long Island, the president called for economic resilience amid the war with Iran, urging Americans to accept temporary gas price surges as a matter of national priority.  'For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember you're doing it so that a very evil country cannot have a... it's the number one state sponsor of terror in the world... We don't want them to have a nuclear weapon,' Trump said in an address at the Nassau County Policy Academy  Trump delivers remarks at the David S. Mack Center for Training and Intelligence on August 14, 2026 in Garden City, New York President Donald Trump just announced plans to declare the Strait of Hormuz a US territory following the defeat of Iran 'Remember that when you have to pay a little bit more, you're at $4,' the president continued, saying, he will 'never apologize.' 'I did the right thing,' he exclaimed.