US President Donald Trump on Friday (local time) said Iran must never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon and described the Strait of Hormuz as “American territory” amid escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran, Al Jazeera reported.
Addressing a rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Trump said, “We cannot let them have a nuclear weapon; we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon, or you will see some very bad things.”
“We went down, and we stopped them; they will never have a nuclear weapon,” he added.
Trump said Iran wanted to reach an agreement but questioned whether Washington would accept a deal, asserting control over the strategic waterway.
“They want to make a deal so badly, we don’t even know if we want [a deal] because I view the Strait of Hormuz as an American territory right now, it’s an American territory,” Trump said, as per Al Jazeera.
Earlier, speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews before departing for Myrtle Beach, Trump had claimed that the United States had “total control” over the Strait of Hormuz and supported the idea of declaring the strategic waterway a US territory.
He said Washington had control over the region linked to the Strait of Hormuz amid its blockade against Iran.
“We’re just going to sort of see what happens, and we have total control, as you know, of the border; we have total control — if you look at the blockade, we have total control of that entire region having to do with the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said.
He also said Iran wanted a deal but was not ready for what he called the “right deal”.
“So they would love to make a deal, but they’re not ready to make the right deal in my opinion,” Trump said.
The remarks came amid continued tensions between Washington and Tehran over the strategic waterway, through which a significant share of global energy supplies passes.
Earlier, Trump shared an AI-generated image on his Truth Social platform depicting the strategic waterway as “NEW U.S. Territory”, while continuing to assert that the United States had control over the region.
Iran rejected Trump’s claims, with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi saying the US President’s assertions over the Strait of Hormuz would be “corrected” either by circumstances or by Iran.
“Just as Trump correctly wrote the name of the eternal Persian Gulf, soon his delusion regarding the Strait of Hormuz will either be corrected or we will correct the delusions of this deluded man,” Gharibabadi said in a post on X.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council head Mohsen Rezaei also criticised Trump’s remarks, saying, “The gap between America’s inability to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and its claim to own it is greater than the 7,000-mile distance between Washington and the Strait itself. Welcome to the post-American order in the Persian Gulf,” according to his post on X.
Trump had recently announced what he called the “most crushing economic operation ever taken” against Iran and warned countries providing financial, business or government support to Tehran of “tremendous economic consequences.”
Meanwhile, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Tehran would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until the United States fulfils commitments under a 14-point memorandum of understanding, including lifting the blockade, releasing frozen Iranian assets and easing oil sanctions.
