by WorldTribune Staff, August 18, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
President Donald Trump on Tuesday reiterated America’s claim to the Strait of Hormuz by posting a revised map of the area on social media that labeled the vital waterway “new U.S. territory.”
President Donald Trump’s post to Truth Social
Trump posted the image on Truth Social site and followed with subsequent posts that the area had been cleared of Iranian mines and no further talks with Iranian leadership have been scheduled.
“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 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 U.S. territory. “Essentially, that’s what it is,” he added.
“We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to,” Trump said.
The president initially revealed the possibility of a permanent U.S. presence in Hormuz during an event on Long Island on Friday.
The Wall Street Journal cited an unnamed White House official as saying Trump was joking. But the president told reporters in the Oval Office that annexing the strait was a “great idea.”
Trump also pointed to what he described as the effectiveness of the U.S. military’s naval blockade: “We’re taking out millions of barrels of oil a week. If you look at the numbers we’re getting, the strait is open, oil prices are going down, and they’ll continue to go down, unless we decide to do something much more drastic than what we’re doing now.”
Trump confirmed on August 18 that there are no talks underway or scheduled with Iran, officially letting a 60-day memorandum of understanding expire without a peace deal.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi called Trump’s map a “delusion,” posting on X that the strait “has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian,”
