No international law permits a US president to unilaterally declare an international strait as their nation's territory. This is the starting point for understanding President Donald Trump's statement at a campaign event in Garden City, New York on August 14, 2026, that he would 'soon' declare the Strait of Hormuz as US territory. According to Scripps News, the US currently has no official legal authority over this strait, and Trump himself has provided no specific details to turn his statement into policy. In other words, this is a statement without legal basis, but it reflects very accurately the military reality currently existing on the ground.
The 'U.S. territory' declaration is not a legal plan, but a political way of naming an endless blockade.
A Statement Without Law, But With Firepower Behind It
The Strait of Hormuz, connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, is a maritime chokepoint through which, before the war, one-fifth of the world's crude oil and liquefied natural gas passed, according to Deutsche Welle. Since Iran blockaded the strait in retaliation for a war launched by the US and Israel, Washington has responded with its own naval blockade targeting Iranian ships and ports. The US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on July 29, 2026, that since early May, approximately 1,000 merchant vessels have safely passed under escort by a US-led coalition, carrying roughly 500 million barrels of crude oil. CENTCOM simultaneously rejected claims by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that international vessels must follow routes designated by that force, asserting that Hormuz is international waters over which the IRGC has no authority to designate shipping lanes.
In other words, the US has exercised and continues to exercise a form of actual control over this strait through naval power, despite having no legal title to it. Trump's declaration of 'US territory,' therefore, is more political than a legal turning point—using words to legitimize a military reality that has existed for several months. He has raised this idea before: according to the New York Post, as early as March 2026 he had proposed renaming the strait to the 'American Strait' or naming it after himself, after European and Asian allies refused to participate in a joint effort to protect this shipping lane.
From Khamenei's Assassination to a War Without End
To understand why Washington is wielding military control over a strait tens of thousands of miles from US shores, one must trace the war's starting point. Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in an airstrike carried out by the US and Israel on February 28, 2026, along with his daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter, as we reported. Iranian media estimated that between 41 and 43 million people attended his multi-day funeral, where crowds chanted slogans demanding Trump's death. His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, succeeded him as Supreme Leader but has not appeared publicly since.
The war, which White House officials say aims to end Iran's nuclear program and provoke a popular uprising to overthrow the regime, has now lasted nearly six months as of the August 14 campaign event, according to the New York Post. It has also exacted an enormous material price: the recent military campaign consumed approximately 1,000 Tomahawk missiles, each valued at 2 to $2.5 million, while US production capacity reaches only about 90 to 100 per year. This supply gap is alarming if the conflict continues, and it partly explains why Washington is seeking to end the standoff through economic pressure rather than continuing to deplete its weapons stockpiles.
Faltering Diplomacy: Agreements Signed Then Broken, Delegations Arriving Then Departing
The diplomatic landscape in recent months has been a series of advances and retreats. A preliminary peace agreement between Trump and Iran was signed on June 17, 2026, but collapsed last month after Iran attempted to impose control over Hormuz, including by firing on merchant vessels moving along an Oman-adjacent shipping lane approved by the US, according to the New York Post. A planned round of negotiations in Geneva was cancelled, while Qatar's intermediary delegation still traveled to Tehran and Iran's Foreign Minister was present in Oman to discuss strait security, according to our earlier reporting. Notably, at the same time, reports indicated that a ceasefire achieved in April was being extended indefinitely and maintained, while another of our articles noted that the US-Iran ceasefire agreement has collapsed. The contradiction between these two information streams is itself a sign: the situation is too volatile for anyone, even the warring parties, to describe consistently within a single week.
Vice President JD Vance, answering Fox News on August 13, 2026, identified two main US objectives in the standoff with Iran: stabilizing the global energy market and preventing Iran from possessing nuclear weapons. The same day, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Newsmax that Washington was preparing to apply unprecedented economic measures against Iran, combining economic isolation with maintaining the Hormuz blockade to prevent goods from entering Iranian ports. By the evening of August 13, Bessent told the New York Post that the sanctions planned to be announced in the coming week would represent an unprecedented tightening in the history of economic isolation of a nation. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to Scripps News, stated that the US could maintain the naval blockade for as long as necessary.
The Real Cost: From Gas Prices to the Mental Health of Sailors
At the campaign event, Trump urged American voters to accept higher gas prices as a necessary cost to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, stating that the economic cost of the war, including gas prices around $4 per gallon, was justified, according to the New York Post. This figure matches public data: according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the latest national average gas price is $4.01 per gallon for the first week of August 2026, though it has fallen 1.79% compared to the previous period—a sign that the market has cooled somewhat but remains elevated abnormally compared to pre-war levels (read our data analysis). For Vietnamese American families in Orange County or Houston who own nail salons, restaurants, or run delivery services, every cent increase at the pump adds to operating costs already running on thin profit margins.
Trump also stated that Iran currently faces 350% inflation with its currency nearly worthless, according to the New York Post—a figure that, if accurate, shows the economic pressure on Iran is far more severe than the gas price burden American consumers are experiencing. But the cost of the war extends beyond the gas bill. Family members of sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln told US military media that the crew is struggling with difficult living conditions.
Bảo Nguyễn
Bảo Nguyễn founded Saigon Sentinel to give the Vietnamese diaspora truly independent, in-depth community coverage at a time when misinformation moves faster than fact-checks and the language barrier makes verification harder than it should be. He sets the editorial standards and quality controls that govern the reporting, chooses the subjects, writes and edits each article, reads it against its sources before publication, audits published output, and handles corrections.