President Donald Trump said the United States now has “total control” of the Strait of Hormuz and intends to maintain it as commercial shipping remains far below prewar levels and U.S. forces enforce a naval blockade against Iran.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
President Donald Trump declared Wednesday that the United States has gained “total control” of the Strait of Hormuz, portraying Iran as increasingly unable to challenge an American naval blockade that has sharply restricted activity around one of the world’s most strategically important energy corridors.
Trump made the assertion as vessel traffic through the strait remained a fraction of the levels recorded before the war and Washington increased pressure on ships accused of violating its blockade of Iran.
The president said the United States intends to retain its position in the waterway.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the United States “has total control over the Strait of Hormuz,” adding, “I think we will keep it.”
He described the U.S. naval operation in unusually forceful terms.
“Our Naval Blockade is being called, by everyone, ‘A WALL OF STEEL,’ and there is nothing Iran can do about it,” Trump wrote.
Trump also argued that months of war have severely diminished Tehran’s military strength, asserting that Iran has “no Navy” or “Air Force” and that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been “decimated.”
He pointed additionally to Iran’s economic difficulties and high inflation as evidence of the pressure facing Tehran.
“Iran is all talk and no action, the Bully of the Middle East No Longer,” Trump wrote.
The president’s claims came as shipping data showed extraordinarily limited commercial traffic moving through the Strait of Hormuz.
Kpler tracked only eight vessels in the strait Tuesday, the fewest in a single day since Aug. 5. Before Iran moved to close the waterway following the beginning of U.S.-Israeli attacks on Feb. 28, approximately 130 to 140 ships typically traveled through the strait each day.
Of the eight vessels tracked Tuesday, seven were entering the strait using the Iranian route. Only one vessel, a coal carrier, was recorded leaving.
Separate data from LSEG counted 11 transits Tuesday, down from 14 the previous day.
The reduction illustrates the continuing disruption to commercial navigation as Washington and Tehran each claim authority over the future of the passage.
Iranian officials reject Trump’s characterization that Washington has effectively determined the strait’s status.
Mohsen Rezaei, the newly appointed secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Tuesday that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed unless the United States changes its conduct and accepts Tehran’s conditions for ending the war.
Iran’s demands include an end to the war, the release of frozen Iranian assets and an end to fighting elsewhere in the region, including in Lebanon and Gaza.
The opposing declarations underscore the broader struggle over control of the strategic waterway, with Tehran maintaining that it will determine when normal shipping resumes while Trump says the United States already controls the strait.
Washington has steadily increased its enforcement measures against Iranian maritime activity during the conflict.
The United States initially announced a naval blockade of vessels entering or departing Iranian ports in April. The blockade was imposed again in July following the collapse of a peace agreement reached in June.
American forces demonstrated their willingness to enforce the restrictions this week when they opened fire on a Panama-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the vessel’s crew allegedly ignored warnings while attempting to breach the U.S. blockade.
That incident, combined with the steep decline in commercial transits through Hormuz, comes amid an intensifying confrontation over whether Iran can continue restricting shipping or whether U.S. naval forces have effectively wrested control of the passage from Tehran.
The Strait of Hormuz has remained a central front in the U.S.-Iran conflict because of its importance to international energy transportation and Iran’s attempts to restrict maritime traffic since the war began.
Trump’s Wednesday statement left little ambiguity about Washington’s assessment of the current balance of power.
While Tehran continues to insist that reopening the strait depends on American concessions and broader regional conditions, Trump says the U.S. blockade has left Iran unable to dictate events in the waterway and that Washington intends to maintain the control it has established.
Original article
Comments