Washington will be the "guardian angel" of the waterway, and will get paid for it, the US president has claimed
US President Donald Trump has escalated tensions in the Middle East by declaring that America is "taking over" the Strait of Hormuz from Iran, positioning US forces as the "guardian angel" of the critical waterway while asserting Washington will "get paid for it." The announcement comes as Tehran has formally declared the strait closed, citing what it calls "hostile actions" by US forces.
Speaking by phone to 'Fox & Friends' on Monday, Trump claimed Iran was getting its "ass kicked" in the ongoing conflict with the US, asserting that the country's navy, air force, and missile capabilities had been "virtually annihilated." He went on to list senior Iranian leaders he said had been killed in the campaign.
The president confirmed that US troops were continuing strikes against Iranian targets after he declared a recent ceasefire with Tehran "over" this past weekend, signaling a dramatic return to open hostilities.
"We're taking over the strait. They've got nothing," Trump said, arguing that Washington should have confronted what he called the Iranian threat "47 years ago." He accused successive US administrations of having been "tapped along" by Tehran for decades without taking decisive action.
Control of the Strait of Hormuz—a vital corridor for global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments—has become the central flashpoint in a Middle East conflict that erupted following a surprise joint US-Israeli attack on Iran on February 28. That strike killed the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei along with several members of his immediate family, triggering a cycle of retaliation that has now drawn in multiple regional players.
Iran's Persian Gulf Strait Authority formally announced the closure in a post on X on Monday, stating that passage through the strait is "currently unfeasible" due to "recent hostile actions by the US forces." The statement added that all applications for passage would be reviewed once "stability and calm" are restored, and that the permitting process would resume according to a scheduled timeline.
The current wave of violence follows a brief ceasefire reached in April, which had paved the way for a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on June 17. That agreement collapsed as both sides clashed over conflicting interpretations of the MoU's terms and the legal status of the strait. The US has now struck targets inside Iran for four consecutive nights, with Iran retaliating by launching missiles and drones at US military installations in Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman—a significant widening of the conflict that now threatens broader regional stability and energy security across the Gulf.
"We've had ten deals with these people, and so we're just going to hit them very hard," Trump said, adding that the US intends to "guard" the Hormuz strait and will be "getting paid a lot of money" in return—though he offered no specifics on how such a payment arrangement would be structured or enforced.
Under the terms of the now-collapsed MoU, Iran had pledged to use "its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge" during a 60-day window, while also agreeing to negotiate with Oman over "the future administration and maritime services" in the strait. Tehran, however, has consistently maintained that it retains the sovereign right to regulate traffic, collect tolls, and require vessels to follow a designated shipping route through the waterway.
Washington, for its part, has demanded that Iran declare the strait fully and unconditionally open, and has taken the additional step of guiding commercial vessels along an alternate route closer to the Omani coastline. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has denounced this rerouting as "illegal," further inflaming an already volatile standoff that analysts warn could disrupt a significant share of the world's seaborne oil trade if the closure persists.
With both sides entrenched and diplomatic channels apparently exhausted, the situation in the Gulf remains highly unstable. Shipping companies and energy markets are bracing for continued disruption, while regional governments hosting US military installations face mounting pressure amid the exchange of strikes. The coming days are likely to prove decisive in determining whether the strait remains a battleground or reopens under terms acceptable to both Washington and Tehran.