The president says Washington should be compensated for protecting the strategic waterway at the center of the escalating conflict with Iran.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States will become the “guardian” of the Strait of Hormuz and argued Washington should be compensated for protecting the strategic shipping lane, now the focal point of the escalating conflict with Iran.
“We’re just going to hit [Iran] very hard, and we’re going to keep the strait, and we’ll probably run it. We’ll become the guardian of the strait … And we should be reimbursed for that,” Trump said in a phone interview with Fox News.
According to Trump, the United States should be compensated because the “other nations” that benefit from traffic through the waterway — through which 20% of the world’s crude oil passes — “are very wealthy.”
“They’re on our side, and we can’t be expected to do that for nothing … What we want is to be reimbursed for doing all of this, for putting our people in danger,” he insisted.
The president accused Tehran of breaking an agreement to end the conflict, which reignited after Trump declared the ceasefire broken and U.S. forces bombed Iranian targets in retaliation for attacks on vessels attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
“We hit them very hard last night. Every time they send a drone, we hit them very hard. What nobody knows is that we had a deal. It was a done deal, and then they broke it. They always break it. We’ve had ten deals with these people, so we’re just going to hit them very hard,” he said.
In response, Tehran has struck Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, Oman and the United Arab Emirates — Washington allies that host U.S. military presence. Iran also declared the strait closed “until further notice.”
The U.S. launched a new offensive against Iran on Sunday night aimed at “continuing to degrade” Tehran’s ability to attack commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. Central Command (Centcom) said the targets included Iranian missile and drone facilities, naval capabilities, munitions depots, communications networks and coastal surveillance posts.
