President Donald Trump on Friday said the U.S. has effectively blockaded the Strait of Hormuz and declared that he will soon move to make the strategic waterway “essentially” a territory of the United States. “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 at an event in Garden City, NY. “Essentially, that’s what it is. We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to.” <\/p>\n
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The Democrats saying that is a hoax, because they’re the ones that cause the affordability. We’re bringing the prices way down. Look at what’s happening. Coming way down. And 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. Essentially, that’s what it is. We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to. But – and how about Venezuela? Venezuela was a one-day war, and now we work great with them. We’ve taken in millions and millions of barrels of oil. But we’re doing really good. We’re doing good in every way. You know, I built the military, and now I used it a little bit more than I wanted to, frankly, but that’s okay, because we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. Do we agree? Can’t let it. So, most things are down. And I had – you know, before I started that, I had to make a journey. I said to my guys. I said to Howard [Lutnick], Scott [Bessent], Marco [Rubio]. They’re all fantastic. What a great group we have. But I said, fellows, we had just had the best month ever anyone has ever had as President. The numbers had just come out. I just got back. I was in Iowa helping some people. And I was in office, and we’re looking at the pump, and it’s $ 1.95 a gallon, and another one was $ 1.85. I said, $ 1.85 a gallon. And I meet them the following day. I said, I have bad news for you guys. 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. They would have had a nuclear – if we didn’t hit the B-2 bombers, if we didn’t hit them, you would have had a nuclear weapon, and it would have been a very sad day for this country and for the entire world. So I said, we’re going to have to put out the fire in the Middle East, and we’ve done that. They’re never going to have a nuclear weapon. We have – we have loaded up. Thank you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n