Donald Trump

Aug. 18 (UPI) — The United States on Tuesday sanctioned two senior officials of the International Criminal Court, as the Trump administration cracks down on the global tribunal it calls a threat to U.S. sovereignty.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the rest of the Trump administration has aggressively targeted the court over arrest warrants it issued in November 2024 for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, on allegations of war crimes committed during the war in Gaza.

Though not a member of the court, the United States has rejected the warrants, even under the former Biden administration, and has been critical of its jurisdiction over U.S. citizens and potential for politicization. Under the administration of President Donald Trump, Washington has used its powers to target the court with punitive measures.

On Tuesday, Rubio unveiled sanctions against ICC President Tomoko Akane and ICC Senior Trial Lawyer Abdoulaye Seye on accusations that they were “directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction.”

“The ICC has repeatedly attempted to assert authority over nationals of the United States and other countries that have not consented to its jurisdiction or ratified the Rome Statute,” he said in a statement, referring to the international treaty that established the court in 2002 to try individuals accused of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.

“This sets a dangerous precedent.”

UPI has contacted the Hague-based court for comment.

The sanctions, which freeze all property of those designated, come under an authority given to the secretary of state by an executive order Trump signed in the presence of Netanyahu at the White House in February 2025, during his third week back in office.

Last month, Rubio announced the launch of a whole-of-government campaign to dismantle the threat the Trump administration alleges it poises to the United States. Along with increased sanctions and visa revocations of ICC personnel, the campaign includes encouraging other countries to exit the court and increased scrutiny of countries that receive U.S. assistance but do not criticize the ICC, as well as nations under the so-called U.S. security umbrella are also being urged to reject the ICC’s authority to prosecute U.S. officials and service members.

“The ICC has become a kangaroo court that cloaks its abuse of power in language of international law while undermining the very principles of justice,” said Netanyahu, whom the ICC has accused of using starvation as a weapon of war and crimes against humanity, including murder and persecution.

“I commend Secretary of State Marco Rubio for leading the Trump administration’s determined efforts against the ICC’s illegitimate overreach, and for making clear that the corrupt officials who lead the ICC will face consequences,” he added in the statement.

The court described Trump’s executive order in February as an unprecedented attack that undermines its ability to administer justice and a threat to international law that protects millions of victims.

Following the announcement Tuesday, the Netherlands came to the court’s defense while international human rights organizations chastised the United States.

“International courts and tribunals must be able to freely carry out their mandates,” Foreign Affairs Minister Tom Berendsen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, said in a statement, saying he has invited Akane to discuss the country’s support.

“We fully support the court and its staff,” he said.

Margaret Satterthwaite, the United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, said she was “alarmed” by the sanctions being imposed on judicial operators for doing their jobs.

“Sanctioning independent judges and lawyers for their work to end impunity and ensure justice for the most grave crimes is a shocking betrayal of the Nuremberg promise and a violation of the human rights guarantee of fair trial and access to justice,” she said in a statement.

Erika Guevara Rosas, senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns at Amnesty International, rebuked the punitive action as a “reprehensible assault” on the international justice system that was part of an intimidation campaign meant to obstruct its work.

“These sanctions are not about sovereignty. They are about shielding powerful actors from accountability and punishing those tasked with investigating and prosecuting the gravest crimes under international law,” she said.

Kenneth Roth, senior fellow at Yale University and former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that Trump was sanctioning the court “so that American and Israeli officials can commit war crimes (and worse) with impunity.”

“No one should accept this utter lawlessness,” he said.

Last week, HRW and three other human rights groups sued the Trump administration over sanctioning judges and prosecutors of the ICC.

State Attorney General Keith Ellison has called for the transfer of an ICE agent accused of lying about a nonfatal shooting.

Minnesota’s attorney general is suing the governor of Texas to force the extradition of a federal agent charged with shooting and wounding a man during President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.

In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison argued that Texas Governor Greg Abbott has refused to fulfil his “mandatory” obligation to transfer Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Christian Castro, so that he may stand trial.

“Governor Abbott has withheld the warrant and held up Castro’s extradition for nearly three months,” Ellison told reporters on Tuesday. “He has no discretion to decline to do so.”

Ellison also asked the US district court in southern Texas to bar Cameron County Sheriff Manuel Trevino from allowing Castro’s release from jail.

Castro’s case has become part of a national debate over transparency and excessive violence during Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

The agent was involved in the January 14 shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan man living in Minnesota. Officials allege that Castro fired a gun into Sosa-Celis’s front door, striking him in the leg.

Initially, the Trump administration said the agents had fired in self-defence, accusing Sosa-Celis and two other people of attacking officers with a broom and a snow shovel during an immigration enforcement operation.

Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem went so far as to call the incident the “attempted murder” of an ICE agent.

But video emerged contradicting the ICE agents’ testimony, and in February, federal prosecutors dropped the charges they had filed against Sosa-Celis and his housemate, Alfredo Aljorna.

In a statement that month, ICE’s then-Acting Director Todd Lyons confirmed that Castro and a second ICE agent appeared to have lied about the incident. The two officers were subsequently placed on administrative leave.

“A joint review by ICE and the Department of Justice (DOJ) of video evidence has revealed that sworn testimony provided by two separate officers appears to have made untruthful statements,” Lyons said in a statement at the time.

In May, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office charged Castro with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime.

“Mr Castro is an ICE agent. But his federal badge does not make him immune from state charges for his criminal conduct in Minnesota,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement.

Castro was arrested on May 29 in Texas, and he has remained in detention since.

But Ellison has expressed concern that Texas officials – including Abbott, an ally of President Trump – could seek Castro’s release rather than have him face trial.

The Minnesota attorney general described Castro as a flight risk, likely to flee across the US border to Mexico.

“We know that [Castro] has some connections to Mexico, and we know that he has some thought of at some point going to Mexico,” Ellison said. “So, we do believe he’s a risk.”

Abbott’s office told The Associated Press in a statement that it would not comment on “pending extradition matters”.

Under Texas law, Ellison said the 52-year-old Castro could be released from custody as soon as next week – 90 days after he was detained – if Abbott does not agree to his extradition.

The Sosa-Celis shooting was one of several cases this year that prompted questions about the use of deadly force during immigration proceedings.

The Minneapolis area was the subject of one of Trump’s most intense immigration enforcement campaigns, dubbed Operation Metro Surge.

Lasting from December to February, Operation Metro Surge saw what critics considered to be escalating tactics from immigration officials, including warrantless house searches.

Two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretty, were killed by agents during protests against the operation.

Lawmakers in the United States have renewed calls for answers about conditions on board the USS Abraham Lincoln, suggesting that reports emerging from the aircraft carrier may belie a troubling pattern.

In at least three separate appeals, Democrats called for more information about how the Navy prepared for the vessel’s record-breaking deployment.

The aircraft carrier has been involved in military operations against Venezuela as well as the US-Israel war on Iran since it departed from San Diego, California, in November.

The ship has yet to dock for a port call in the time since. Having spent more than 260 days at sea, it has broken the US Navy’s record for the longest deployment without a stop.

Reports have emerged in recent weeks about crew members attempting to jump overboard amid shortages of food and other supplies.

On Tuesday, US Representative Pat Ryan published a letter sent to acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao and signed by 22 members of Congress.

It noted that the lengthy deployments “have become a pattern in the Administration’s handling of its war against Iran”.

The war, which began on February 28, shows no sign of ending. Ryan pointed out that the USS Gerald Ford had also broken records for the length of its deployment as part of the Iran war, and it, too, was the subject of worrying reports about strain on sailors’ health. The ship returned to the US in April.

“The reported conditions on the Lincoln, following so soon after the reported conditions on the Ford, leave Congress and the public concerned that the Department is not adapting quickly enough to the conditions,” Ryan wrote in his letter, dated August 14.

He also questioned whether US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees military operations in the Middle East, was “taking the appropriate steps to mitigate the continued challenges in our fleet”.

A delegation of California lawmakers, including Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, has also sent a letter to the Pentagon calling for an inquiry.

Separately, a group of Democratic senators addressed another letter, dated August 15, to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, demanding answers and calling for accountability.

“This is a symptom of poor planning by both you and the President and exacerbated by the deeply unsound decision to start a war with Iran,” that letter said.

“Open-ended deployments driven by an open-ended war have real consequences for our servicemembers, and we are seeing those consequences now.”

The appeals for more information come as the USS Lincoln prepares to navigate home.

Cao revealed last week that the USS Lincoln would soon return to the US. The announcement coincided with reports that the USS George Washington has been rerouted from the Pacific Ocean to replace its fellow aircraft carrier.

But the USS Washington’s departure leaves no aircraft carrier in the Western Pacific, long portrayed as a region of strategic interest for the US as it seeks to check China’s territorial ambitions.

President Donald Trump and his defence officials, meanwhile, have argued that reports about the USS Lincoln’s conditions have been overblown.

Hegseth, for instance, has called the reports of conditions “completely misrepresented”. Trump last week also said the vessel had not been deployed “nearly long enough”.

On Monday, the president brushed aside questions about the USS Lincoln’s conditions as part of a “CNN fake report”.

Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command, has also released a statement on social media this week, saying he has visited the USS Lincoln in recent days and found the crew “awe-inspiring”.

“This doesn’t mean that all is perfect,” he wrote. “Find any of the nearly 4 million Navy veterans in America today and they will likely tell you that service at sea for long periods isn’t for everyone.”

But he applauded the USS Lincoln’s leadership for having made “mental health and crew resilience” a priority.

Unlike Democrats, members of Trump’s Republican Party have largely not responded to the reports of mental health strain and supply shortages on the USS Lincoln.

However, Representative Don Bacon voiced concern during an interview on CBS News’s Face the Nation programme on Sunday.

“We should have oversight,” he said.

US Agriculture Department says rescinding the 2001 rule will help reduce wildfire risk and return control to local managers.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has filed a proposal to rescind the entirety of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which prohibits road construction and logging on nearly 45 million acres (18 million hectares) of national forest land.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins submitted the proposal on Tuesday, saying it will mitigate wildfire risk by returning authority to local forest managers, who “know the land best”.

“For too long, outdated restrictions have kept tens of millions of forested acres off-limits to the very treatments that improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk to our communities,” Rollins said in a statement. “It’s time to turn the page on the failed roadless rule and return our forests to health and productivity.”

The Trump administration and Republican lawmakers say building roads in these areas would make it easier for firefighters to access the land if a wildfire breaks out.

“For 25 years, the heavy thumb of Washington, D.C., has hindered Montana’s ability to properly manage wildfire risk and road development on nearly 60 percent of Forest Service land across the Treasure State,” Republican Governor Greg Gianforte of Montana said in a statement.

While the areas are referred to as “roadless”, there are thousands of miles of existing roads within the lands with federal, state, and county ownership. About half of these lands are within 1 mile (1.6km) of a road, and 31 percent are within 0.5 miles (800 metres) of a road, according to the National Forest Service.

The USDA clarified that it is not forcing timber cutting or road construction.

But environmental groups say rescinding the conservation rule will open the door to developments that will increase the risk of wildfire. Fires are four times more likely to start near roads than in roadless forests, according to research from The Wilderness Society.

“Roadless forests are where wildlife live,” Taylor McKinnon, southwest director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “They’re home to jaguars, Mexican spotted owls, and ocelots, some of the most iconic animals on the continent. Plowing roads into their habitat will bring human-caused wildfires and disturbances that they don’t need and can’t afford.”

The US is experiencing one of its worst wildfire years in the last decade, with 7.3 million acres (3 million hectares) burned in about 49,000 fires through August 17, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

More than 95 percent of the affected areas would be in 10 states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

In early August, the state of Washington fought a highly destructive wildfire that burned more than 8,000 acres (3,200 hectares) and forced approximately 65,000 people to evacuate.

Last month, the Trump administration finalised rollbacks of two regulations affecting the Endangered Species Act. One change requires officials to weigh economic and national security considerations when determining whether an area should be designated as “critical habitat”.

The public will have until September 21 to comment on the proposed Roadless Rule.

Judge previously found US government brought charges against Abrego Garcia as retaliation for case that embarrassed it.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump is seeking to revive criminal charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man whose wrongful deportation became a source of embarrassment for US immigration authorities.

The US Department of Justice asked a federal appeals court late on Monday to throw out a previous ruling by a judge that slammed the administration’s prosecution of Abrego Garcia as a form of political retaliation.

In his May ruling, US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw found the government’s efforts to bring criminal charges against Abrego Garcia to be an “abuse of prosecuting power”.

Federal prosecutors argued in a brief filed with the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals that Crenshaw’s ruling was flawed in a push to revive criminal charges the Trump administration brought against Abrego Garcia after being forced to return him to the US.

The Salvadoran national was brought back to the US after the government admitted that it had wrongfully deported him to El Salvador, where he was held in a detention facility that was operated by the Salvadoran government and that was notorious for abusive conditions and alleged use of torture.

The Trump administration initially fought efforts to return the 31-year-old Abrego Garcia to the US, even after admitting that he had been wrongfully deported despite a 2019 order from an immigration judge that he had a “well-founded fear” of being targeted in El Salvador.

The administration then filed criminal charges against Abrego Garcia when he arrived back in the US, accusing him of human trafficking.

Crenshaw found that there was evidence of “presumptive vindictiveness” on the part of the US government and that the charges would not have been brought if Abrego Garcia’s case had not been a public setback for the government.

Abrego Garcia has previously said that he is willing to agree to be deported to Costa Rica. But the Trump administration has instead fought to have him deported to the African nation of Liberia, to which he has no connection and where he would be far from friends and family.

FCC faces scrutiny as Disney claims licence renewal order is tied to political motives against ABC’s coverage.

Disney has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) amid efforts to stop an early licence review for eight ABC-owned and -operated stations around the United States.

In the lawsuit filed in a federal court in Washington, DC, the media giant alleged the early renewal is an effort by the administration of US President Donald Trump to intimidate the company after infuriating the president.

In April, the FCC ordered the network’s stations, which include its affiliates in New York and Los Angeles, to file their licence renewals ahead of schedule despite the fact that for six of its stations, the current term isn’t even halfway finished. The station with the closest deadline is WTVD in Durham, North Carolina, but that is not until December 2028. The network says the move is part of a political “retaliatory campaign”.

“Again and again, the Administration has attacked ABC’s speech – the stories its journalists report and the viewpoints its network programs air. Over time, those attacks have escalated into express demands that ABC be stripped of its broadcast licenses because of its speech,” the 46-page complaint said.

The suit presented a wave of Truth Social posts that the president posted in 2025 threatening the network, among them one saying that the network “should lose their Licences for their unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives”.

The FCC said the April licence renewal call was a result of diversity, equity and inclusion practices at ABC’s parent company, Disney, and an investigation into the ABC network’s talk show programme The View.

In March, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened broadcasters, saying stations airing “fake news” could lose their licences amid Trump’s frustration with coverage of the US-Israel war on Iran.

Not long after, Trump demanded that ABC fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over comments he made before the White House correspondents dinner shooting in which he called first lady Melania Trump an “expectant widow”. Trump responded to them after the shooting, characterising them “a call to violence”.

Free speech advocates have praised ABC for the lawsuit.

“It’s about time for someone to take Brendan Carr and his FCC to court over their endless campaign of intimidation and retaliation against journalism that displeases Carr’s thin-skinned boss,” Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told Al Jazeera.

“No matter what pretexts he asserts, Carr’s modus operandi is clear: to serve as Trump’s censorship tsar and abuse his office to repeatedly and exclusively target Trump’s perceived adversaries in the media, whether through sham proceedings or threatening letters and X posts.”

The network called for a “speedy hearing” in the complaint as well as a temporary restraining order.

News of the lawsuit sent Disney’s stock surging in morning trading by 1.1 percent.

United States President Donald Trump has threatened to bomb Oman if it “gets in the way” of a peace deal between the US and Iran.

Oman is currently negotiating with Iran over the reopening of the critical Strait of Hormuz, while Iran has repeatedly stated that it will not speak directly to the US.

On Monday, as Iranian officials said they were close to announcing an agreement with Oman, a 60-day Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Washington and Tehran – which had provided for a period of peace talks but largely fell apart early on – expired with little hope for renewal.

This is not the first time Trump has threatened Oman, a US ally which has never entered into any direct conflict with the US. Oman, through whose territorial waters the contested Strait of Hormuz also flows, has positioned itself as a neutral party in the US-Iran war. Despite that, it has suffered a number of strikes by Iran, which has targeted US military assets and infrastructure around the region in retaliation for US-Israeli attacks.

Now, Trump is threatening to strike it as well.

Here is more about what Trump has threatened, and why.

What did Trump threaten Oman with?

Trump told US broadcaster Fox News on Monday that Iran should surrender, and claimed that his administration had opened a direct backchannel for talks with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

During the interview, he threatened to bomb US ally Oman if it “gets in the way” of US talks with Iran.

“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the s*** out of them,” he said.

An IRGC spokesman denied Trump’s claim of direct talks, telling Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News: “There are no talks taking place between IRGC officials and the Americans, and this lie by Trump is merely fantasies caused by the delusions and nightmares he has suffered as a result of defeat and desperation in the war.”

Has he threatened Oman before?

Monday was not the first time Trump threatened Oman over the course of the five-month war between the US and Iran. In May, he made a similar threat.

At a cabinet meeting on May 27, a reporter asked Trump what he thought about the idea of Oman and Iran jointly overseeing shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

“ Would you accept a short-term deal that allows Iran and Oman to control the strait?” the reporter asked.

Trump replied with a seemingly offhand threat. “Nobody is going to control it. It’s international waters, and Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we will have to blow them up.”

While there was initial speculation that Trump might have misspoken and said “Oman” instead of “Iran”, the US State Department later shared the comment on social media, with a transcript of the quote that referred to the Arab country.

What is the context for all this?

For the past few weeks, Iran and Oman have been engaged in direct talks, facilitated by mediators in Qatar, to reach an agreement over how to manage maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in the future.

While Iran had agreed to keep the strait open to shipping without charge for 60 days following the signing of the MoU with the US on June 17, this quickly fell apart as the two sides disagreed over who had ultimate control over the strait – in particular which routes ships should take. Towards the end of June, Iran launched strikes on a number of ships which had followed an Oman-issued route, approved by the US, rather than its own route, and the US restarted strikes on Iran for nearly two weeks.

Following that, Iran refused to talk directly to the US, saying it had violated the terms of the MoU which included a cessation of hostilities on all fronts, and began talks with Oman over the future of the strait instead. Iran also issued a list of new demands relating to the lifting of sanctions and a permanent end to US strikes before it would resume talks, it said.

On Monday, Tehran said the two countries have reached an agreement on a new shipping route in the strait and are now preparing a joint declaration.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said the proposed mechanism for control of the strait seeks to protect the interests of both Iran and Oman while allowing commercial shipping to pass through.

“This is the first time that a mechanism is being developed to simultaneously safeguard the sovereign rights of the two littoral states and ensure the safe passage of commercial vessels,” said Baghaei.

The Strait of Hormuz is a critical waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies were shipped before the US-Israel war on Iran began on February 28. Roughly 130 ships sailed through the strait each day.

Iran closed the strait in early March, allowing only a few ships it deemed “friendly” to pass through the strait until it signed the MoU with the US on June 17. Since then, it has become the key issue holding up talks for a lasting peace plan to end the war on Iran.

The US, meanwhile, has established its own blockade on Iranian ports in and around the strait. Last week, it fired on a Panama-flagged cargo vessel it accused of attempting to reach Iranian ports and which, it said, had failed to follow orders to change course.

The crisis has triggered global energy shortages and the price of oil has soared. The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, was about $66 a barrel just before the Middle East conflict began. Over the course of the war, the price has surged past $100 on several occasions, most recently on July 23. In March, the price rose as high as $119.

Global benchmark Brent crude futures rose to $91.22 a barrel on Tuesday, inching close to a three-week high.

What is Oman’s position on the Iran war?

Oman, which is known for its neutrality, has not publicly stated that it intends to join Iran in controlling the Strait of Hormuz. The US and Oman are close partners with a relationship stretching back nearly 200 years.

The two countries have multiple cooperation treaties, including security partnerships, a free trade agreement and a science and technology deal.

During the war, Iran launched multiple strikes on US military assets and energy infrastructure in neighbouring countries, including Oman.

Oman previously acted as a key mediator between Washington and Tehran as they sought a resolution to the war that began on February 28, when the US and Israel attacked Iran.

So, why is Trump threatening Oman now?

A potential Iran-Oman understanding covering the Strait of Hormuz could cut against one of Washington’s core demands: that Iran relinquish control of the strait as a condition of ending the war. Rather than curbing that control, such a deal would lend it greater legitimacy by formalising Iran’s position.

But experts say Trump is also likely angry that the US has seemingly been cut out of the deal relating to the strait.

“In part, a solution mediated without US intervention and which in fact allows Oman and Iran to manage passage through Hormuz, which lies entirely within the two countries’ territorial waters, would show how impotent the United States is and has been,” Laleh Khalili, a professor of Gulf studies at the University of Exeter, told Al Jazeera.

The US and Iran have also strongly disagreed about whether Iran should be allowed to charge fees to shipping companies using the strait. Under international law, tolls for passing through natural waterways such as Hormuz are forbidden, even when they are not technically in international waters. However, fees for services such as insurance, environmental protection and docking can be charged. It has yet to be seen whether this issue will be addressed in an Iran-Oman agreement.

In late July, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that Iran should not be allowed to charge tolls on vessels traversing Hormuz. Days earlier, Trump himself pledged there would be no tolls for passage through the strait, unless they are collected by his own country.

On August 14, Trump went a step further, telling his supporters in New York that he had plans to declare the Strait of Hormuz a “territory” of the US. “After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” Trump said.

Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, responded to that threat on social media with defiance.

“Trump said that, after Iran’s defeat, he will soon declare the Strait of Hormuz as American territory,” Gharibabadi wrote.

“The Strait of Hormuz cannot be taken over by a tweet, nor by an aircraft carrier, nor by issuing a decree, nor by an election speech. Iran is neither afraid of threats nor intimidated by a show of force.”

Aug. 18 (UPI) — Two counties and two cities are suing the Trump administration over conditioning national security funding on local governments adopting sweeping election procedures, calling the requirement illegal federal overreach.

The Brennan Center for Justice filed the lawsuit Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of Nashville and Davidson County, Tenn., Harris and El Paso counties, Texas, and Columbus, asking it to declare the decision to impose election administration conditions on grants unlawful and enjoin its enforcement.

“This is the kind of federal overreach we’ve come to expect from the Trump administration,” Harris County Attorney Abbie Kamin said in a statement emailed to UPI. “To threaten law enforcement and public safety funding our agencies rely on, to withhold dollars that protect our communities for a partisan power grab is not only improper, it’s dangerous.”

Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has taken a series of actions he says are to improve election integrity and security but that Democrats and civil rights advocates have described as efforts to interfere with and undermine U.S. elections.

In June, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, under the Department of Homeland Security, updated compliance requirements for Homeland Security Grant Program funds, which are to help local governments prevent terrorism. Conditions added include creating a plan for transitioning to hand-marked paper ballots, conducting a 5% post-election manual audit and citizenship verification for all poll workers and registered voters, among others.

FEMA said it will withhold 20% of the recipient’s total HSGP funding until receipt of proof of compliance with the new requirements.

The jurisdictions suing the administration described the withholding of funds as FEMA holding their money “hostage” and its new election-related conditions “arbitrary and capricious.”

“Never before has FEMA purported to regulate how states and counties run elections,” they said in the lawsuit, stating that such a change would require congressional authorization, which FEMA does not have.

“The power to administer elections belongs to the states, subject only to conditions imposed by Congress — not the president, not the secretary of Homeland Security and not FEMA.”

The plaintiffs state that FEMA has not provided a “reasoned explanation” for the change in funding administration while ignoring the legal, financial and logistical “chaos” the new conditions will cause with midterm elections less than two months away and the potential harm withholding anti-terrorism funds could cause.

“Holding cities hostage by threatening anti-terrorism funding if they don’t go along with the president’s absurd election manipulation is as dangerous as it is illegal,” Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein said in a statement.

“We’re fighting back to protect public safety and election integrity. We will not be bullied by this president and his administration.”

SEOUL, Aug. 18 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has responded to his overtures for talks, one day after he ordered a sweeping reduction in U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises, citing his “very good relationship” with Kim.

Trump made the remarks during a press availability in the Oval Office, fueling speculation that his directive could be aimed at reopening dialogue with Pyongyang.

Asked why Kim had not responded to his requests for a conversation, Trump replied, “How do you know he hasn’t responded?”

“He has,” Trump said when pressed. He declined to elaborate, saying only that developments were “very positive.”

Trump went on to tout his personal relationship with Kim, saying the North Korean leader had “always treated me with great respect.”

“I understand him. He understands me,” Trump said. “He didn’t like Biden. He didn’t like Obama. He didn’t like anybody, but I get along with him very well.”

In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump said the allies’ Ulchi Freedom Shield drills, which began Monday, are expensive and “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea. He said Pyongyang “has been unthreatening and respectful” while he has been in the White House.

Trump also noted that South Korea declined his request to help with the denuclearization of Iran.

“Therefore, and based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises!” he wrote.

In a text message to reporters on Monday, an official with Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the Ulchi Freedom Shield drills had started as scheduled.

“The UFS exercise is proceeding as planned,” the official said.

Later in the day, the presidential Blue House released a statement saying that Seoul was “paying close attention” to Trump’s comments, adding that it hoped friendly relations between Washington and Pyongyang would lead to meaningful peace talks between the two countries.

“To this end, we will exert necessary diplomatic efforts as a pacemaker under close cooperation with the United States,” the statement said.

The Blue House added that it has actively participated in international discussions for a cease-fire in Iran and freedom of passage in the Strait of Hormuz and is “closely discussing practical and military contribution measures with the U.S. side.”

As of Tuesday, it was not clear what aspects of the exercise would be reduced under Trump’s order. In a statement reported by news agency Yonhap, the Pentagon said it “is actively working on executing the Commander-in-Chief’s directive.”

The order drew criticism from Democrats in Congress, who warned that reducing the exercises could undermine military readiness and weaken confidence in U.S. security commitments.

“When President Trump cuts military exercises to flatter a dictator or punishes South Korea for declining to join a war he started, all of our allies — and adversaries — think that America’s commitments are negotiable,” Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement. “Kim Jong Un has won a propaganda victory and South Korea, one of our strongest allies, has been punished for no reason beyond Trump’s ego.”

Peter Lee, a research fellow at the Seoul-based Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said Trump’s order reflects his transactional approach to the alliance and longstanding skepticism about the costs of U.S. military commitments in South Korea.

“This latest directive should also be seen as a reminder that President Trump still has many cards he can play to pressure South Korea,” Lee told UPI. “The task for the Lee administration is therefore how to reduce this ‘unfaithful ally’ narrative that President Trump periodically returns to and instead lean into the ‘model ally’ framing that others such as [Defense] Secretary Hegseth have touted.”

Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Trump’s move went beyond his repeated public overtures to Kim and appeared aimed at drawing the North Korean leader back to the negotiating table.

“This is really the first concrete action he’s taken to try to entice Kim, and he’s used the timing of these exercises as the way to do it,” Cha said during a CSIS discussion Monday.

Pyongyang has not yet publicly responded to Trump’s announcement, and Cha said he did not expect an immediate reaction.

“I’m sure it’s a message that’s been heard … but I don’t think the North Koreans are going to respond right away,” he said. “I think they’re going to bide their time and wait a little bit.”

Trump similarly called for suspending or scaling back the exercises since his first term, when he pursued direct diplomacy with Kim that included summits in Singapore and Hanoi and a brief meeting at the DMZ.

After the Singapore summit in 2018, Trump surprised observers by announcing that the United States would halt what he called “provocative” joint military exercises with South Korea. That year’s Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise was canceled, while several subsequent drills were reduced in scale.

In his White House press availability, Trump denied that he was prioritizing North Korea over Washington’s allies in South Korea.

“I’m actually making it much safer,” he said in response to a question.

Trump also elaborated on his request for South Korea’s assistance with the war in Iran, saying he raised the issue in a recent call with President Lee Jae Myung.

“I said, ‘Would you like to give us a little hand? We don’t need help with Iran, but if you’d like, give us a hand with Iran.’ He said, ‘No thanks,'” Trump said.

Trump said he viewed Seoul’s refusal as a matter of “fairness,” citing the cost of maintaining U.S. forces in South Korea and his longstanding push for Seoul to shoulder more of the expense.

“We have 39,000 soldiers over there guarding you from Kim Jong Un, your next-door neighbor, and you are not going to help us on a very easy military operation in Iran,” he said.

The United States has roughly 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea.

Later Monday, Trump posted a meme of Kim on his Truth Social account. The image showed the North Korean leader surrounded by military officials and speaking into a telephone, with the caption: “Hey Donald, we cool … right?”

Aug. 18 (UPI) — The Pentagon has directed 30 U.S. academic institutions to immediately and comprehensively review their collaborations for ties to “foreign entities of concern” under threat of losing future federal research funding.

The Department of Defense announced the directive Monday, giving the unidentified institutions until Aug. 31 to report their findings in order to maintain eligibility for federal grants.

“Universities are critical partners in executing a wide range of Department of War research programs, and the Department must therefore ensure that our research investments are well protected from foreign exploitation,” Joseph Jewell, assistant secretary of Defense for Science and Technology, said in a statement, referring to the Defense Department by its secondary title authorized by President Donald Trump last year. Its statutory name remains the Department of Defense.

The audits are part of a broader effort to protect Defense Department research from foreign adversaries and follow legislation Congress passed in December 2024 as part of the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act requiring annual reviews of research grants for compliance with Pentagon research-security policies.

The institutions are to review academic, financial and research ties with entities identified under Section 1286 of the fiscal year 2019 NDAA, as well as those associated with rebranded Confucius Institutes.

The list includes 130 academic and research institutions located in China, Russia and Iran. The list was updated last month.

The Pentagon said the audits are to protect U.S. taxpayer-funded research from getting into the hands of adversarial nations as well as from unauthorized transfer and intellectual property theft. It added that the audits will also aid the Department of Defense in better anticipating emerging threats and adapting to evolving adversarial tactics.

The Department of Defense “has zero tolerance for academic partnerships that compromise our national security,” Emil Michael, under secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, said in a statement.

The institutions are also being directed to implement mitigation plans that include terminating what the Pentagon called “problematic partnerships.”

US president says Iran should ‘put up the white flag of surrender’ as the two nations’ MoU expired on Monday.

Aug. 17 (UPI) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Donald Trump‘s son-in-law Jared Kushner and other members of his Board of Peace in Jerusalem on Monday to discuss the president’s plans for Gaza.

Trump has called for Hamas to disarm and demilitarize and for Israel to cease its airstrikes and military operations in the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu has pushed back as Israel has continued to launch strikes.

Monday’s meeting followed negotiations between the Board of Peace and leaders of Hamas. During those talks, Hamas officials shared a list of cease-fire violations allegedly committed by Israeli forces.

Last month, Trump announced that Hamas has agreed to a road map toward disarming. Israel’s continued military operations have complicated that plan. Meanwhile, Netanyahu rejected Trump’s proposal earlier this month, urging that Israel will not pull out of Gaza until Hamas has completely disarmed.

NBC News reported that Netanyahu and Kushner reached an agreement that a U.S. military general should supervise the disarming of Hamas. NBC News cited an unnamed source in this reporting.

Mike Huckabee, U.S. ambassador to Israel, and former British Prime MInister Tony Blair were also present for the meeting.

Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that he and the representatives from the Board of Peace agreed to establish two working groups with two different focuses. One will focus on disarmament and demilitarization. The other will focus on preparations for reconstruction in Gaza, including sanitation efforts, clean water and public health concerns.

Before reconstruction can take place, the sides agreed that Hamas must be disarmed and demilitarized.

Aug. 17 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Monday to bomb Oman if the nation’s leaders get “in the way of” any potential Iran deal with the United States.

“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the [expletive] out of them,” Trump told Fox News.

Oman is not part of the U.S. conflict with Iran, but Omani negotiators have been speaking with Iran over a deal between the two Middle Eastern nations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Esmail Baghaei, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said Monday that Oman and Iran had reached an understanding about a map of the transit route in the waterway. About a third of the world’s crude oil passes through the strait.

Iranian officials have previously said that they’ll reopen the strait only after the United States ends its naval blockade of Iran’s ports and stops attacking Iran. They’ve also requested the end of sanctions and compensation for damage from the attacks.

A two-month window to negotiate peace with Iran, established in the June “memorandum of understanding” between the United States and Iran, officially ended Monday with no progress. The two countries have also strikes for more than a month despite the agreement. Trump told Fox News on Monday that he is “in no hurry” to reach a permanent deal.

“I have no time schedule,” Trump said. The president has repeatedly said that the conflict will end “soon” and promised imminent peace deals that haven’t come to fruition. He also said in the interview that Iran should “put up the white flag of surrender” and denied reports that the United States munitions have been depleted.

Trump previously threatened to “blow up” Oman in May during a Cabinet meeting. On Friday, he threatened to make the Strait of Hormuz “a territory of the United States.”

Tehran, Iran – Iranian authorities have signalled they could shift to a more offensive approach to the war with the United States as a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Washington expires.

Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, head of the political bureau of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), told state television on Sunday night that his forces were ready to take whatever action is needed to defend the country.

Tensions between Iran and the US over control of the Strait of Hormuz have continued to rise despite a ceasefire being agreed between them in June. While the MoU effectively collapsed after fighting restarted last month, the agreement officially expires on Monday.

“The enemy started the war and our efforts have been defensive, although they might take on an offensive aspect,” said Javani.

He did not elaborate on what exactly the offensive measures could entail, but said opponents should expect “strategic surprises”.

IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi last week identified US and regional allies’ infrastructure – such as energy networks, power plants and internet-connected systems – as potential targets, if the US hits Iran’s civilian infrastructure.

Hardline Iranian politicians and media outlets have discussed the idea of mounting a ground incursion against US interests in Bahrain and Kuwait if Washington invades Iran.

Analysts have raised questions over the feasibility of that and the risks involved, while there is no recent indication that the US is planning ground operations in Iran.

The Iranian emphasis on offensive deterrence against the US comes after Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, viewed as a hardliner, consolidated his power by appointing several IRGC old guard and confidants to key military and security positions last week.

Khamenei said Major General Ahmad Vahidi’s rise to commander-in-chief of the IRGC must represent a mix of “maximum deterrence” with readiness for “powerful offensive operations against the enemy”.

Vahidi said Khamenei’s leadership and the Iranian armed forces had managed to “bring to its knees the most heavily-armed army in world history” after the US and Israel launched strikes in Iran on February 28, starting fierce fighting between the two sides.

US President Donald Trump reiterated on Friday his claim that Iran was defeated in the war while facing a naval blockade acting as a “wall of steel”. He also said the Strait of Hormuz would “pretty soon” be declared US territory.

The White House later suggested that comment was a joke, but Iran’s army chief, Amir Hatami, reacted by setting a $30,000 reward for any man who kills or captures a US soldier, if they are involved in any ground operation on Iranian soil. Women would be given twice the reward if they managed such a feat, he added.

“Our hands are open in terms of reaching the aggressors and they will become more open through our initiatives,” Hatami said, referencing recent Iranian attacks on US forces in Jordan.

Mohsen Rezaee, who has the powerful position of secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, suggested that the Trump administration might have been considering ground operations on Iranian territory, but held off as a result of “half-baked plans”.

Rezaee said that the US Central Command had refrained from hitting Tehran or northern Iran during the two-week flareup in fighting in July, instead attacking about 50 cities in 15 provinces.

He believed that the purpose of the air raids was to prepare for a ground assault to take control of the Strait of Hormuz and potentially reach nuclear facilities in Isfahan, where highly-enriched uranium is suspected of being buried under the rubble of US strikes.

Bridges, roads, maritime control towers, radar and other coastal installations, and military facilities were struck to cut off logistical supplies to southern Iran, Rezaee noted.

“They had not calculated that to land troops for the Strait of Hormuz, it’s not doable with 40,000-50,000 soldiers, you must bring at least 100,000 people,” he said. “You must cross the Zagros Mountains and be able to pass the Fars province.”

Iranian media and commanders have reported in recent weeks that scenarios are in place to defend individual islands and coastal areas in southern Iran that the US military might consider seizing. They include the critical oil export terminals on Kharg Island.

Iranian territories around the Strait of Hormuz have been reinforced with rapid-response units.

Army spokesman Mohammad-Reza Akraminia said last week that the aim will be to prevent any foreign troops landing on Iranian territory.

“If the Americans enter one of our islands, we will certainly target them on our own islands, let alone on other countries’ soil,” he told state TV.

Authorities have also signalled they are ready for any unrest provoked by separatist groups near Iran’s western borders with Iraq and Turkiye, or in the east with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The IRGC has reportedly bolstered defences and continued to launch missile and drone strikes against armed groups based in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Iran shrugs off expired MoU

Javani, the political chief of the IRGC, said in a separate interview on Monday that the Strait of Hormuz will only fully reopen when Washington implements commitments agreed under the MoU signed in June.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that a two-month window to halt fighting was not specifically mentioned in the MoU text. The ministry also dismissed that the expiration had any particular significance to the war with the US, or Tehran’s ongoing talks with Oman regarding Hormuz.

“It has been proven many times that the Islamic Republic of Iran is not a party to devise its policies under pressure, ultimatums and deadlines. We decide based on our evaluations of what guarantees national interests and security,” Baghaei told reporters during a briefing on Monday.

He said the talks with Oman have so far been delayed in producing an arrangement on the partial reopening of Hormuz due to legal and technical complexities, the multiple actors involved and “ill-wishing parties” seeking to spoil the process.

Parliament speaker and chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said during a speech on Sunday night that the MoU was a “document of pride and victory in the field of diplomacy”.

Ghalibaf insisted that the Islamic Republic had emerged “victorious”, both politically and militarily, from the war with the US and Israel.

“I don’t mean that we destroyed their armies, I mean that they attacked us while clearly and repeatedly citing nine objectives, but did not achieve any of these goals at any level. That was the biggest abject failure for the US and the Zionist regime,” he said.

Ghalibaf has not yet managed to convince the Iranian leadership to agree on a long-term diplomatic resolution with the US to end the war.

Aug. 16 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday he ordered the Pentagon to scale back its joint military exercises with South Korea, saying that Seoul declined to help the denuclearization of Iran.

In a social media post, Trump said the drills scheduled to begin this week are expensive and “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea. He said North Korea “has been unthreatening and respectful” white he has been in the White House.

“Therefore, and based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises!” Trump wrote.

The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, involving 18,000 South Korean troops over 11 days, were to strengthen readiness against threats from North Korea and began Monday to run through Aug. 27.

North Korea, which has long condemned the exercises as preparations for invasion, last week denounced the scheduled drills, describing them as a provocation that would raise tensions in the region.

South Korea has yet to response to Trump’s surprise and last-minute direction.

On Saturday, Trump posted a June 2019 photo of his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Korean Demilitarized Zone. He wrote that he gets along “GREAT!” with Kim “despite the unfriendly look on this particular picture.”

Aug. 16 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump‘s Middle East envoy Jared Kushner on Sunday met with Hamas to discuss the U.S.-backed peace plan for Gaza.

Kusher, Trump’s son-in-law, met with a delegation that included new leader Khalil al-Hawayy in Egypt, the BBC reported.

Trump’s Board of Peace last month said it reached a deal for the “complete disarmament” of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza. However, Israel last week rejected the 15-point plan that also calls for Israel to withdraw its troops from the enclave and for its reconstruction under a new civilian Palestinian government.

Eight Muslim countries on Sunday issued a statement blasting Israel’s rejection of the plan.

According to the BBC, the meeting was said to be the first at this level since a ceasefire agreement for Gaza was reached last year.

Board of Peace envoys Nickolay Mladenov and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair reportedly took part in the meeting, along with representatives of Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey.

Kushner also met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Kusher, Mladenov, and Blair were to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, according to Israeli media reports.

Netanyahu has said he wants Hamas fully disarmed to implement the plan.”Israel rejects the Board of Peace’s 15-point document on Gaza,” he said. “The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed.”

Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia said in a joint statement that Israel’s rejection of the plan threatened Trump’s peace efforts.

US president says he’s ‘not happy’ about the drills, citing his ‘very good relationship’ with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

US President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to scale back joint military exercises with close ally South Korea, citing his “very good relationship” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump said in a social media post on Sunday that the exercises, due to start on Monday, are costly and “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, which he said “has been unthreatening and respectful” while Trump has been in the White House.

“Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

He also mentioned Seoul’s stance on the US-Israel war on Iran.

“I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, ‘No thanks!’” he said.

Trump added that it was too late to cancel the drills, so he had ordered Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” them.

When asked about Trump’s post, South Korea’s Ministry of Defence said the military exercises would “proceed as previously notified and scheduled”.

The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield drills, scheduled to run for 11 days from August 17 to 27, will involve 18,000 South Korean soldiers. They are a regular summer fixture for South Korea’s armed forces and their US allies, designed to prepare them for defence against the nuclear-armed North Korea, which is battle-hardened from its involvement in Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Pyongyang has always been angered by the exercises, saying they are rehearsals for an invasion.

Last week, North Korea denounced the latest drills as a provocation that heightens tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

A spokesperson for North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday that the US-Japan-South Korea military cooperation is turning into a nuclear alliance, and Pyongyang will respond to a new level of threat with a new level of deterrent.

The following day, Trump posted a photo of himself standing next to Kim and wrote that the two leaders got along great, “despite the unfriendly look on this particular picture”.

During his first term, Trump met Kim three times.

This is not the first time that the US president has sought to end the exercises with South Korea. After a historic 2018 summit in Singapore with Kim, he called the military drills “expensive” and “provocative“.

Aug. 16 (UPI) — The commander of U.S. Central Command visited the USS Abraham Lincoln days after the aircraft carrier drew public attention over reports of poor conditions on board and attempted suicides of sailors.

Adm. Brad Cooper visited the ship as part of a 10-day tour of the Middle East, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. Cooper also met with senior civilian and military leadership in Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

The Lincoln, which is based in San Diego, has been at sea for a record of more than 260 days after being deployed to Venezuela and then the Middle East, where it is currently.

Families of sailors serving on the ship have told media outlets several crew members have tried to jump overboard or have been stopped from doing so in recent months. There have also been reports of a lack of fresh food on board and moldy showers, among other issues.

“Unfortunately, the media are trying to paint our warriors as victims,” Navy Secretary Hung Cao said in a statement on Friday. He later said that Lincoln would return home and be replaced with the USS George Washington.

Senate Democrats have been pressing the Trump administration about the conditions on the Lincoln as well as its planning for its conflict with Iran.

“I was just speaking to a spouse just about three days ago and this is the current problem right now,” U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., said on ABC News’ This Week on Sunday. “It really goes to the deep, deep, deep problem here is that this administration did not plan for this war, did not plan how to get out of this war, did not really understand how this war was going to escalate.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said media reports have “completely misrepresented” the situation, while President Donald Trump told reporters that the deployment’s length is “not nearly long enough.”

President Donald Trump on Friday said he would designate the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the United States “pretty soon” as the status of the waterway, a global chokepoint through which a fifth of global oil and gas passes, remains under a military and diplomatic deadlock.

Iran has fired back, dubbing Trump’s threats as “nonsense” as the memorandum of understanding signed between the two in June expires on Sunday.

Tehran has blocked the passage to leverage it as a global economy kill switch, while Washington has maintained a military naval blockade against Iran’s ports, choking its economy further.

In the apparent game of who blinks first – though Trump says negotiation with Iran “is like chess” – the US president’s military rhetoric has also followed a pattern throughout the ongoing war, which began on February 28. On many occasions, he has threatened to attack Iran only to pull back at the eleventh hour.

So, can the US actually make the Strait of Hormuz its territory? And what does that even mean?

What has Trump said?

“After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” Trump said during a speech at a police academy in New York.

Referring to the naval blockade, Trump went a step further to suggest that the Strait of Hormuz is already a US territory. “Essentially, that’s what it is,” he added.

“We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to,” he said.

Iran maintains that it controls the waterway — and despite the US claims, some vessels have transited the passage despite the blockade, maritime navigation data shows.

“It’s clear the US president, with a chuckle as he said that, even himself, is not taking this particularly seriously,” said Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington, DC.

“These are the territorial waters of Iran and Oman. But what the US president likes to do is get under the skin of adversaries, and, in this case, it’s Iran,” she said.

“What we should point out, though, is what the US president is not backing down on is the fact that there is a naval blockade by the United States in effect in the Strait of Hormuz, and that is ongoing.

How has Iran reacted to it?

Several Iranian officials have sharply reacted to Trump’s remarks. The head of the judiciary came out with furious rhetoric, calling the US president criminal and feather-headed, his remarks “nonsense” and saying the Strait of Hormuz belongs to Iran.

Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, also responded, saying, “The Strait of Hormuz cannot be seized by tweet, nor by aircraft carrier, nor by issuing an order, nor by an election speech.”

“The Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian; this strait will only be closed and opened under Iran’s command, and as long as you do not accept the reality of defeat and cease your fanciful delusions, Iran will continue to enforce the blockade,” he added.

Meanwhile, Iran has been holding talks with Oman, the only other coastal country in the strait, to reach a settlement on the management of maritime traffic in the strait. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in comments carried by the Iranian Students’ News Agency, said negotiations between Tehran and Muscat “may reach a conclusion soon”.

The reopening of the waterway, however, is a separate issue, Araghchi said, where Washington has to adhere to promises made in the June memorandum of understanding, including removal of the naval blockade and sanctions on Iran.

That is the new Iranian position on the ongoing war, where Tehran is now seeking these US concessions for mere reopening of the waterway, which were originally conditions for ending the war.

Is Trump’s claim even practical?

First, sovereignty does not exchange hands over a mere unilateral presidential proclamation.

For instance, Trump had earlier threatened to send US boots to Iran’s Kharg Island to take over the key Iranian oil export hub in the Gulf. Tehran then responded by saying that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would be waiting for them, “with fingers on the trigger”. Trump had previously also threatened to take over Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.

Bruce Fein, associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, says Trump is constitutionally powerless to annex on his own.

“A treaty ratified by the Senate or statute is constitutionally required to annex territory, as with the Louisiana Purchase or annexation of Hawaii or Panama Canal or acquisition of Puerto Rico or the Philippines in ending the Spanish-American War.

If he goes ahead with annexation, Fein says, it would “constitute the crime of aggressive war under international law, including the UN Charter”.

Natalie Klein, a specialist in international law and associate dean at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, said, “Essentially the only way Trump’s claim could have any plausibility under international law would be if the US was asserting control over the Strait as an occupying power perhaps comparable to the authority the US exercised over Japan immediately after World War II.”

“But in that scenario, the US would need to have military control over Iran or at least its coastal areas.”

Trump’s war on Iran is also widely unpopular in the US, where the president and his fellow Republicans are seeking to defend their narrow congressional majorities in November’s midterm elections. Barely 35 percent of Americans approve of the war, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Several US media publications have reported that Washington is running short on munitions, including the crucial Patriot antimissile interceptor. Petrol prices have also increased, and are now averaging more than $4 a gallon – a major issue for Americans.

Last week, US Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration’s top priority in the war was to control increasing petrol prices, while stopping Iran’s supposed race to a nuclear weapon now comes second.

Tehran has also attacked its neighbours in the Gulf, which analysts say are aimed at forcing the regional countries to push Washington into a corner at the negotiating table.

Even Iran does not enjoy unfettered sovereignty over the strait as a whole, under international laws, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), but only some coastal sites near its own borders.

The UNCLOS recognises coastal-state sovereignty over territorial waters, but limits that territorial sea to 12 nautical miles (22km), and notes that ships enjoy a right of passage that “shall not be impeded”.

The Strait of Hormuz is in international waters, sandwiched between the coasts of Iran and Oman. At its narrowest point, the strait is only about 21 nautical miles (39km) wide — and the two countries’ 12-nautical mile territorial seas overlap across it.

While neither the US nor Iran has ratified UNCLOS, the convention’s rules on international straits are widely regarded as customary law.

Paul Musgrave, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, said Trump usually makes such statements primarily to speak to a US audience, especially his support base.

It is important to remember, he added, that Trump is a product of US reality TV and is, at the end of the day, a “showman”.

“This is a guy who speaks big. You have to take him seriously in some cases but not literally,” Musgrave cautioned.

Trump cannot be taken seriously, especially in this case because making the strait US territory is physically and legally impossible, he said. But the statements do show that Trump is determined not to back down from Iran and accept defeat in the months-long war, he added.

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 14 (UPI) — Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem lashed out at the Lebanese officials Friday for accepting the June 26 U.S.-brokered framework agreement with Israel and failing to secure any gains after seven rounds of negotiations.

He called for an end to “the humiliation” and urging the officials to reverse “the sinful mistake.”

Qassem said in a speech broadcast by Hezbollah-run Al Manar TV that the initial agreement, a conditional and phased process aimed at ending the state of war, amounted to “Israeli dictates” that gave Israel “everything it wants,” while the Lebanese authorities relinquished their sovereignty.

He called for “reversing the sinful, disgraceful and humiliating mistake,” which raises question marks about “what these officials are doing.”

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun decided to engage in direct talks with Israel in what he believed was the only viable path to ending the war, despite Hezbollah’s staunch opposition. Aoun was betting that U.S. President Donald Trump alone could pressure Israel to withdraw its troops and help Lebanon restore its sovereignty.

The war broke out when Hezbollah opened a support front for Gaza on Oct. 8, 2023, and resumed fighting in solidarity with Iran on March 2 this year, triggering a massive Israeli retaliation that significantly degraded the Iran-backed group and caused widespread destruction in southern Lebanon and other parts of the country.

Israel, which reduced some 70 border villages in southern Lebanon to rubble and rendered them uninhabitable while occupying a 6-mile “buffer zone,” insists that it will not withdraw its troops unless Hezbollah is completely disarmed.

The framework agreement, reached by Lebanese and Israeli negotiating teams under pressure from Washington, provides for a phased Israeli withdrawal from occupied parts of southern Lebanon to allow the Lebanese Army to “restore effective sovereign authority,” beginning with its deployment in two initial pilot zones.

The initial accord also addressed plans to disarm Hezbollah, Iran’s main proxy and once its most powerful regional non-state armed actor.

Despite the Lebanese Army’s deployment in the village of Zawtar al-Gharbieh — the first pilot zone in southern Lebanon — Israel continued to carry out strikes, destroy homes and demolish Hezbollah tunnels and military infrastructure.

Qassem pointed out that Israel would not have carried out “all this aggression and genocide without the Americans.”

Addressing Lebanese officials, he asked them to “name a single achievement from the seven rounds of negotiations. Israel got everything it wanted and everything it sought.”

He accused the officials of failing to withdraw from the negotiations with Israel, saying that what is happening “amounts to surrender, which we do not accept.”

Qassem credited Iran for progress, saying that the Iran-U.S. negotiations in Islamabad brought about the return of displaced people to southern Lebanon and a cease-fire that reduced the escalation, rather than the direct negotiations.

He said the war was “an existential war of aggression,” and that his group would “stand firm and defeat the Israeli project” and that those betting on surrender were “betting on a mirage.”

Aug. 15 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Friday said he wants the Strait of Hormuz to become U.S. territory.

Speaking at an event in New York, Trump said he plans to declare ownership of the waterway between Oman and Iran once the war is over.

“After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz strait a territory of the United States,” Trump said, as reported by the Guardian.

“Essentially, that’s what it is,” he added. “We have the blockade — no ships get through unless we want them to.”

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, on Saturday called the president’s remarks “fanciful delusions.”

“Once and for all, accept the reality: up to this point, you have suffered strategic and heavy defeats,” Gharibabadi said in a statement on X. “The Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian.”

“This strait will only be closed and opened under Iran’s command, and as long as you do not accept the reality of defeat and cease your fanciful delusions, Iran will continue to enforce the blockade,” Gharibabadi added.

Traffic through the strait, through which 20% of the world’s oil and gas usually pass, has slowed dramatically since Trump launched the war with Iran on Feb. 28.

Six ships traveled through the strait last weekend, where usually as many as 140 would pass in a single day, The Hill reported.

Both Trump and Iranian officials claim to have control of the strait.

“We have control over it, nobody else, only us,” Trump told reporters earlier this week, The Hill reported. “Our Navy is unbelievable and things are going great for our country.”