President Donald Trump proposed Monday that the US and Iran share control of the Strait of Hormuz — the waterway his administration has spent the last four weeks trying and failing to reopen.
Reporters asked Trump who would control the strait once it reopens. “It’ll be jointly controlled,” he said. “Me and the Ayatollah, whoever the Ayatollah is, whoever the next Ayatollah is.”
The Iranian Embassy in South Africa — a verified state diplomatic account — posted Trump’s quote back at him on X alongside a video of a toy steering wheel mounted on a car dashboard. “The Strait of Hormuz will be controlled by ‘me and the Ayatollah,'” the embassy wrote.
Iran already controls the strait in practice — deciding unilaterally which ships pass and which do not, charging operators for access, and attacking vessels it deems hostile. Countries including India, Pakistan, Turkey, and China have negotiated passage directly with Tehran, bypassing Washington entirely.
Related: Iran Sets Up $2M Toll for Safe Passage Through Strait of Hormuz as Governments Negotiate Access
“Regardless of military results, Tehran is calling the shots on who gets to use the world’s most important energy waterway,” Al Jazeera reported, citing analysts.
A US proposal to jointly manage something Iran already controls unilaterally amounts to an acknowledgment of that reality — not a concession extracted from Tehran.
Any formal recognition of shared US-Iranian authority over the waterway would also mark a sharp break from decades of US policy built on freedom of navigation in the Gulf. CNN separately reported that one regional source described several points in the US negotiating position as “next to impossible” for Iran to accept — raising further questions about what Trump’s announced breakthrough actually secured.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry denied that any negotiations had taken place, directly or through intermediaries. Trump said he has not heard from Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and cannot confirm whether Khamenei is alive, complicating the question of who, if anyone, the US is actually negotiating with.
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