Trump says US will ‘take over’ Hormuz in biggest blow to fragile Iran deal

3 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Jul 13, 2026 07:06 PM IST

President Donald Trump speaks at a lunch in the White House Rose Garden, in Washington. (AP Photo)

US President Donald Trump on Monday said that the United States will “take over” the Strait of Hormuz and should be reimbursed for controlling the strategic waterway as hostilities in West Asia continued with Iran hitting Gulf nations, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Jordan.

Proposed branding and compensation for protective deployment

In an interview with Fox News, the US President said, “We’re going to ‌keep the strait, and we’ll probably run it. We’ll become ⁠the ⁠guardian of the strait. ⁠Maybe ‌we’ll call it the guardian ‌angel of the strait. ‌And ​we ​should ​be reimbursed for that.”

Economic fallout of the regional energy blockades

One of the main battlegrounds in the West Asia conflict is now who controls the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway responsible for 20 per cent of global oil and gas supply.

Since Iran blockaded the strait, oil and energy prices have shot up, raising inflation globally.

Demands for reimbursement from regional oil powers

Referring to strait, Trump said, “We’re going to guard it. We’re ⁠going to get paid for guarding it – a lot of money. We’re going to be reimbursed, because the other ‌nations are very wealthy. They’re on our side, and we can’t be expected to do that for nothing.”

🚨🇮🇷 IRGC Claims Major Retaliatory Strikes On US Bases Across Gulf

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed it launched the “first phase” of retaliatory missile and drone strikes against US military facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan following overnight… https://t.co/shePZVea7i pic.twitter.com/gQCW88dSyf

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) July 13, 2026

Iran had earlier announced that Hormuz was shut after an “authorised transit” was made and added that the passage remained suspended and permits will only be issued as and when “stability and calm” were restored, Reuters reported.

Broken diplomacy and promises of forceful retaliation

“We had a deal. It was ⁠a done deal, and ⁠then they broke it. They always break it. We’ve had 10 deals with these people, and so we’re ⁠just going to ‌hit them very hard,” Trump said on Iran.

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IRGC conditions for restoration of commercial shipping

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in a statement on Monday said the only way to restore the normal shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz is to end the US military’s intervention in the critical waterway, and threatened that “continued interference ‌could lead to ​greater incidents in ​the global ​oil and gas sector.”

US and Iranian forces continued to exchange fire, with Tehran claiming to have attacked US military bases across the Gulf nations and kept the traffic in the Strait of Hormuz suspended, triggering a rise in oil prices.

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