Trump Says US Will Become 'Guardian' of Vital Strait of Hormuz and Expects Payment Amid Iran Standoff

President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States would likely take over control of the Strait of Hormuz and expects to be compensated for guarding the vital oil shipping route, as Washington and Tehran continued to assert competing claims over the waterway following a fresh weekend exchange of strikes.

"We're going to keep the strait, and we'll probably run it," Trump said in a phone interview on Fox News' "Fox & Friends." "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." Trump argued the arrangement would mark a departure from decades of unpaid U.S. involvement in securing the corridor. "We guarded the strait for 50 years, and we never got paid for it," he said. "We guarded it for nothing."

Trump indicated he expected other nations benefiting from secured passage through the strait to help cover the cost. "When we do that we're going to be reimbursed because the other nations are very wealthy, they're on our side, and we can't be expected to do that for nothing unlike we had for many years," he said, adding later in the interview, "We're going to guard it. We're going to get paid for guarding it — a lot of money." Trump did not detail a specific reimbursement mechanism or figure during the interview, and the White House had not released formal policy details on how any such payment structure would work as of Monday.

The comments came amid a sharp escalation in fighting between the U.S. and Iran over the weekend that has thrown into serious doubt an interim agreement signed last month, under which the two sides had agreed to reopen the strait and pursue 60 days of further negotiations. Iran declared the strait closed Saturday following what it described as an unauthorized transit, and reiterated Sunday that passage through the waterway remained suspended. U.S. Central Command said it had launched a new wave of strikes against Iran over the weekend, striking what it described as dozens of targets across multiple locations using precision munitions aimed at degrading Iran's ability to threaten shipping through the strait. "The Strait of Hormuz is a vital maritime corridor for global trade. Iran does not control it," CENTCOM said in a statement. "U.S. forces are postured and prepared to ensure that freedom of navigation remains available to commercial shipping despite Iran's continued unwarranted aggression, harassment, threats, and arbitrary declarations."

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps rejected that characterization directly. "The Strait of Hormuz is our territory, and we will not allow a rogue and child-killing army from the other side of the world to continue its illegal interference in it," the Guard Corps said, according to The Associated Press. Iran's top joint military command separately warned that any U.S. attempt to arrange transit through the strait outside routes designated by Tehran, without coordination with Iran's armed forces, would be "strongly resisted." Iran's Revolutionary Guards said in a separate statement Monday that the only path back to normal shipping traffic through the strait was an end to U.S. military involvement in the waterway, warning that "continued interference could lead to greater incidents in the global oil and gas sector."

Iran's Foreign Ministry has said it is working to establish a joint traffic-management mechanism for the strait together with Oman, though spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said U.S. pressure on Oman had complicated those discussions. Iran has separately sought to establish its own permanent fee and permit system for vessels transiting the waterway, which before the current conflict carried roughly a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.

Trump has said he now considers the ceasefire agreement effectively over, even as he left open the possibility of further negotiations. "We had a deal. It was a done deal, and then they broke it. They always break it. We've had 10 deals with these people, and so we're just going to hit them very hard," Trump said in a separate phone interview with Fox News. Iran's top negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, struck a similarly defiant tone in a post on X, writing, "The era of one-sided deals is OVER."

The renewed hostilities have marked a sharp escalation in both the pace and geographic scope of attacks compared with earlier phases of the conflict. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had targeted U.S. military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait, destroyed radar systems in Oman, and struck fuel tanks and ammunition depots at Prince Hassan Air Base in Jordan, in what Tehran described as retaliation for the latest U.S. strikes. The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain condemned Iran's actions in a joint statement, saying, "We condemn Iran's heinous attacks on merchant shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and on countries in the region, including Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Jordan," while calling for a restoration of the ceasefire and a resumption of negotiations.

The renewed conflict has pushed oil prices higher, with Brent crude trading up more than 2.6% to around $77.49 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate crude up nearly 3% to roughly $73.48 a barrel as of Monday, according to market data cited by Benzinga. Shipping-tracking data has shown a sharp slowdown in traffic through the strait, which has fallen to levels not seen in roughly two months as vessels navigate the uncertainty created by the competing claims of control.

Iran has not released an overall casualty count from the past week's exchanges, though state media reports on individual strikes suggest roughly 20 people have been killed by renewed U.S. attacks, with Iranian news agencies reporting two additional deaths and three injuries from strikes near the city of Abadan on Monday. Higher energy prices stemming from the standoff carry particular political sensitivity for Trump ahead of congressional elections in November, given the direct effect rising gasoline costs tend to have on consumer sentiment domestically.

As of Monday, no formal reimbursement framework, payment structure or timeline for the proposed U.S. "guardian" role in the strait had been detailed by the administration, and it remained unclear whether such an arrangement would require congressional action, agreement from other nations benefiting from the arrangement, or further negotiation with Iran, which continues to reject any U.S. claim to authority over the waterway. This is a developing story.