In a speech on Friday, Trump claimed that once Iran is defeated, he will "declare the Strait of Hormuz as American territory."
That's true, the president added.
Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi has a different view of the strait's future.
"The Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian, is Iranian and will remain Iranian," Gharibabadi writes on X, adding that the waterway will not be conquered "with a tweet, an aircraft carrier, an order or an election speech."
An anonymous White House representative later said that Trump's remarks should be interpreted as a joke, reports Wall Street Journal journalist Brian Schwartz.
Before the Iran war, 20 percent of global oil and gas trade passed through the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the US and Israel launched the war against Iran.
Last week, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, a political adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, presented a list of conditions for reopening the strait. The demands included an end to the war and a halt to attacks on Iran and its allies in the region, the lifting of sanctions, and compensation for damage caused by the war.
