Trump predicts US will become ‘guardian angel’ of Strait of Hormuz passage: ‘We’re taking over’

WASHINGTON — President Trump declared Monday that the US will be “taking over” the Strait of Hormuz following another round of airstrikes against Iran overnight.

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“We’re taking over the strait. They have nothing. They’ve got nothing,” Trump, 80, told “Fox & Friends” when asked about Iran’s claims to have closed the critical waterway.

“So we’re just going to hit them very hard, and we’re going to, we’re going to keep the strait, and we’ll probably run it,” the president later added. “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 … We guarded it for nothing, and now we’re going to guard it — we’re going to get paid for guarding it.”

Before the beginning of Operation Epic Fury, Feb. 28, nearly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil flowed through the Strait of Hormuz annually.

The White House had brokered an extended cease-fire with Iran in early April, followed last month by a preliminary peace deal known as a memorandum of understanding, but the pact has fallen apart amid contention over the status of the strait and its impact on the global economy. 

Iran has described the strait as being closed, while insisting it alone must control the waterway and potentially charge vessels for traveling through it. The US military and Trump, by contrast, have asserted that the strait remains open.

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

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US forces struck approximately 140 targets Sunday night, according to the military’s Central Command, including missile and drone launch sites, ammunition dumps, communication equipment, and other areas — a far heavier set of attacks than in two previous rounds of strikes in the last week.

“We have them on the run. Most of their equipment is gone. Their anti-aircraft stuff is gone. We hit them very hard last night. Every time they send a drone, we hit them very hard,” Trump said. 

Iran retaliated by launching projectiles at Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, and even Oman — whose territorial waters with Iran make up the strait. There was no immediate word of damage or casualties from the US partners.

Tehran state media acknowledged the latest attacks on its soil early Monday, describing explosions in several locations with at least one person being killed.

Sunday night’s US strikes followed an Iranian attack on a container ship, the latest in a series of back-and-forths between the two sides that led Trump to declare the cease-fire “over” last week — though efforts by mediators from Egypt, Pakistan, and Qatar to reach a final deal continue.

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With Post wires