Iran war live: Trump says he views Strait of Hormuz as ‘American territory’

Iran war live: Trump says he views Strait of Hormuz as ‘American territory’ | Business and Economy News | Al Jazeera

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**Live updates**Live updates,

Iran war live: Trump says he views Strait of Hormuz as ‘American territory’

*US president says Iran ‘would love to make a deal, but they’re not ready to make the right deal in my opinion’.*

!President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with technology leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

*Trump speaks during a meeting with technology leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Wednesday \[File: Jacquelyn Martin/AP]*

By

Zaid Sabah and Zsombor Peter

Published On 22 Aug 2026

22 Aug 2026

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* US President Donald Trump says he “views the Strait of Hormuz as an American territory right now” and that Iran “would love to make a deal, but they’re not ready to make the right deal in my opinion”.
* Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei says the latest US economic sanctions against Tehran are a “declaration of war” on all nations.

11 Updates

* 8m ago
(03:00 GMT)
Trump ridicules Iran leadership, says ‘nobody wants to be president’
We have more comments on Iran from President Trump during a South Carolina campaign rally supporting Senator Darline Graham.

+ “When a country doesn’t any longer have a Navy, an Air Force, radar, technical equipment, manufacturing, their leaders are gone, their second set of leaders are gone, parts of their third set of the leaders are gone. In fact, it’s actually one of my biggest problems; I don’t know who the hell to deal with.”
+ “It’s a problem. It’s the only country in the world where nobody wants to be president. They say, ‘Who wants to be president?’, ‘Oh, no, I don’t want to be president.’ So, it’s a little bit of a problem,” he said.
!People react as U.S. President Donald Trump attends a campaign rally for U.S. Senator Darline Graham (R-SC) at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, U.S., August 21, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
*Trump attends a campaign rally for US Senator Darline Graham at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center in South Carolina, US, on August 21, 2026 \[Evan Vucci/Reuters]*

* 28m ago
(02:40 GMT)
WATCH: ‘We’re seeing what happens’ on sanctions for Iran, says Trump
US President Donald Trump has repeated claims that Iran is weakened economically and militarily, asserting the country “would love” to make a deal with Washington.
However, Iran’s foreign minister responded on social media, writing that Trump’s plans for economic warfare are “bound to fail”.

* 48m ago
(02:20 GMT)
UN rights office for Palestine calls out Israeli army over attacks on Gaza police
The UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territory says the latest killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces in Gaza may be war crimes, highlighting the ongoing attacks on the enclave’s police.
“These incidents are a stark reminder that, despite occasional drops in the number of reported attacks, civilians throughout Gaza remain exposed to persistent, unpredictable, lethal harm,” it said in a statement on Friday.
It said the reported killings of at least 22 Palestinians in Gaza between August 13 and 19 alone, including women and children, “may amount to war crimes and other atrocity crimes”.
The UN office also called the “pattern” of attacks on police personnel and facilities in Gaza “alarming”, including an attack on Gaza City’s municipal police headquarters on Wednesday that killed eight officers and a 13-year-old girl.
It says it recorded 18 Israeli attacks on police personnel across Gaza since January, with 77 Palestinians killed, including six children and four women.
Under international humanitarian law, it says, police are protected civilians, unless they are actively and directly participating in hostilities.
“It is hard to see any ‘military necessity’ of Israel’s ongoing attacks across a decimated landscape, which continue to kill and maim civilians, including children and police personnel,” the statement quotes Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office in Palestine, as saying.
“The right to life is the foundational right for all. But it seems in Gaza, there is no respect left for human rights as death, injury and destruction continue day after day,” he added.
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* 1h ago
(02:00 GMT)
UN rapporteur brands Israeli army as ‘the most immoral’ amid latest killings in occupied West Bank
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory, has condemned the latest killings of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
“The MOST IMMORAL ARMY is waging genocide while those in power, as so often in history, refuse to see the victims or recognize their rights to life and self-determination,” she wrote on X, referring to Israel’s army.
“Eighty years after WWII, in the age of human rights built after that war, this is all the more abhorrent,” she added.
Her post included an image of another post commenting on the death of Fathi Khazem, a Palestinian man reportedly shot and killed by Israeli forces in his home in Jenin on Friday after resisting an arrest attempt.
The Israeli soldiers prevented an ambulance from reaching him and left him to bleed to death before taking his body, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.

* 1h ago
(01:40 GMT)
!Analysis
Trump’s economic ‘D-Day’ on Iran unlikely to yield intended outcome
Ross Harrison, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, says Trump’s use of military terminology like “D-Day” to describe economic pressure on Iran is unlikely to force Tehran to capitulate.
Harrison told Al Jazeera that Iranians have already been living in an economic “D-Day” since maximum pressure sanctions were reimposed after the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal.
“I think the D-Day is language Trump is using because the military campaign failed to create the kind of conditions on the ground that would get the Iranians to capitulate,” Harrison said.
“I think he’s using that language in order to transfer military language to economic language, but in terms of actually creating the kind of outcome that he plans or hopes for, I’m quite sceptical,” he argued.
Harrison added that China remains the most significant source of support for Tehran, but targeting that connection carries major risks for Washington.
“I think the biggest lifeline that could be given to Iran would come from China,” he said. “And the question is not really the policing; the question is whether the United States is willing to pay the price of derailing US-Sino relations now, when China also has levers of power that they could inflict upon the United States and because there’s a looming summit between President Xi and Donald Trump in Washington next month.”
“So, it’s not a matter of policing; I think it’s a matter of whether the US is willing to go to the mat and pay the price of disrupting a relationship that Donald Trump seems to be leaning on right now,” he said.

* 1h ago
(01:20 GMT)
!Houthi
Iran says US economic sanctions are a ‘declaration of war’ on all nations
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei says new US sanctions against Iran go far beyond an illegal economic war on a single nation, characterising them as a “declaration of war” against al