‘It has a nice ring to it’: White House reacts as Trump wants to rename Strait of Hormuz ‘Strait of Trump’ | Today’s news
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday proposed renaming the Strait of Hormuz the “Strait of Trump” despite ongoing clashes with Iran – then hours later suggested he was not serious. The White House later posted a map of the Persian Gulf on social media with his proposed name, adding: “It has a nice ring to it.”
In his second term, Trump has made a number of changes to the geographic names of international bodies of water, at least in part to troll other countries.
The latest proposal came as Trump insisted the US has full control over the vital waterway, even as fresh clashes with Iran have raged there.
“Now that the US has it under control, should we change the name of the Strait of Hormuz to TRUMP’S STRAIT??? Like America itself would be ‘hotter’ than ever!” Trump stated this on his social network Truth.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to claim sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks, even posting a map depicting the waterway as “new US territory.”
However, Trump later played down the idea of rebranding the Strait of Hormuz.
“It was just thrown out there,” Trump said with a smile after an AFP reporter asked him in the Oval Office if he was serious about the renaming.
But a number of the 80-year-old Republican’s previous proposals were dismissed as jokes before finally becoming real.
Last week, Trump signed an order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” amid a trade war with neighboring Canada, just days after he floated the idea apparently in jest.
The Iran war continues
Trump also renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” on his first day back in the White House in January 2025. Neither Mexico nor Canada accepted the changes.
He also embarked on renaming things one after the other, including the Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, while the US Treasury Department meanwhile released $1 coins with Trump’s face on Wednesday to mark the 250th anniversary of US independence.
The Iran war remains a deadly problem, with no sign of an end more than six months after the initial US-Israeli attack.
Fighting flared up again after weeks of lull, with US forces launching new strikes near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday in response to what Trump said were new mine-laying efforts by Iran.
Iran said one of the US strikes killed four people at a wedding, calling it a “war crime”, and launched a wave of retaliatory strikes on US bases in Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain and Iraq.
At home, Trump has presided over a war-induced spike in U.S. fuel prices, and his GOP appears likely to lose at least some control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.
In retaliation for the war that Trump started with Israel at the end of February, Iran effectively closed the choke point through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes.
Trump said on Wednesday that the United States was ready to strike Iran again – adding that the renewed campaign would not last “too long”.
“It was a very heavy attack last night and we stand ready to carry out another attack whenever we want to,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
