Video: US will run Strait of Hormuz — Trump
United States President Donald Trump
Abdullateef Fowewe
United States President Donald Trump has vowed that the United States will keep the Strait and likely “run it”.
Trump in an interview on Monday noted that the US would be reimbursed for protecting the Strait of Hormuz after recent strikes on Iranian military equipment.
“We are going to keep the strait. We will probably run it,” Trump said, adding, “We will become the guardian of the Strait, and when we do that, we will be reimbursed for it.
“We guarded the Strait for 50 years, and we never got paid for it. We guarded it for nothing, but now we will make money.”
Speaking in the wake of what he described as successful strikes on Iranian air-defence assets, Trump issued a warning to Tehran and framed the action as a response to a broken agreement.
“Most of their equipment is gone. Their anti-aircraft gun, we hit them very hard last night,” he said.
“Every time they send a drone, we hit them very hard.”
Trump said the United States had honoured a deal that Iran later violated, and portrayed the strikes and potential long-term presence as a corrective measure.
“But we had a deal. And then they broke it. They always break it, so we’re just going to hit them very hard and we’re going to keep the Strait and we’ll probably run,” he said.
