WASHINGTON — To the victor go the naming rights.
President Trump is prioritizing taking control of the Strait of Hormuz as he grows frustrated by the lack of military help from allies to force open the economically crucial waterway. And once Trump ends Iran’s reign of terror over the global shipping route, he’s considering rechristening it the “Strait of America” or even after himself, sources told The Post.
“We are taking the Strait back. It’s guaranteed, and they will never blackmail us on that strait,” one senior administration official told The Post. “You can take it to the bank.”
While Trump said Iran is virtually decimated and wants to make a deal, the Trump administration wants to finish the job in the Middle East — including ensuring Iran can no longer stop shipping and claim authority over the Strait of Hormuz.
“He does believe that if we’re going to guard it, if we’re going to take care of it, if we’re going to police it, if we’re going to ensure free safety through it that, why should we call it that [Hormuz]?” the senior administration official said.
“Why don’t we call it, you know, the Strait of America?”
Trump told a Saudi investor forum Friday evening in Miami that he might even decide to call the Strait after himself, rather than America.
“They have to open up the Strait of Trump — I mean Hormuz,” Trump said.
“Excuse me, I’m so sorry. Such a terrible mistake. The Fake News will say, ‘he accidentally said.’ There’s no accidents with me, not too many.”
The name of the energy bottleneck on the southern coast of Iran is linked to the medieval Kingdom of Hormuz, whose own name is theorized to come from a pronunciation of the Zoroastrian God of light Ahura Mazda.
The long-gone emirate, which became a vassal of the Portuguese maritime empire in the 1500s, controlled Hormuz Island, a salt dome smaller than Manhattan, past which about a fifth of global oil exports flowed before the war brought trade to a virtual halt
The renaming concept gained traction by unlikely means — after an image of an apparently phony Truth Social post purportedly authored by the president showed a map of the strait with the new name.
“President Trump just posted this picture renaming the Strait of Hormuz the ‘Strait of America.’ Let’s make it happen!” pro-Trump influencer Benny Johnson, who faced repeated plagiarism allegations in his former journalistic career, posted on Facebook on March 16.
That doctored map does not appear to have actually been posted by Trump on any of his main social media platforms this month — but Johnson’s post nonetheless raked in 5,200 mostly supportive comments from people who believed it was real, along with 40,000 “likes” and nearly 3,000 shares.
A White House official said that the rebrand is “not real… for now!”
A second White House official more tepidly called it an “interesting idea” not under consideration “at this time.”
The renaming would not be unprecedented — after Trump last year forced an official redesignation of the Gulf of Mexico, which now is known as the Gulf of America.
The president and his supporters similarly emblazoned his name onto the facade of the US Institute of Peace in Washington and onto its prestigious performing-arts neighbor, the freshly dubbed Trump-Kennedy Center along the Potomac River.
The latest consideration received mixed reviews among Trump’s supporters.
“This whole naming thing is getting as tiresome and tacky as the gold in the Oval Office,” said a former Trump administration official. “It’s only tarnishing his legacy and hurting the party before the midterms.”
‘Benefit of the world’
The senior administration official said that Trump is hell-bent on opening the strait as its closure is causing a more than 50% jump in oil prices.
“We’re actually doing this for the benefit of the world,” the official said.
While the US continues to pursue diplomacy with Iran, so far discussions have amounted to “having talks about having talks,” a source familiar with mediation efforts said Friday.
Trump has spent the last two weeks attempting to strong-arm US allies from NATO to East Asia to participate in a grand flotilla that would uncork the strait through steer volume — only to rail against those who balked.
The president has deployed thousands of US Marines, sailors and Army parachute specialists to the region as a contingency in case force is needed. Options include landing on islands in the strait as well as possible action on the more distant Kharg Island, the loading site of 90% of Iran’s oil exports.
Such a mission would be the first land assault by US forces since America and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28 to end Tehran’s nuclear program and reduce its military might.
The president has sought to avoid a risky land operation by threatening to bomb Iran’s electricity plants if the strait isn’t opened by April 6.
Trump initially said that the war would last “four weeks or so” — a timetable that runs out this weekend — and Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly told G7 leaders Friday it may last another two to four weeks.
“The problem is there’s not any good options,” a different administration official told The Post.
“There’s also clearly a lot of finger-pointing starting behind the scenes. People are pointing fingers at [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, but I think increasingly they’re going to point it at people at the Pentagon,” this official said.
“The Pentagon knew some things were going to happen, like with Hormuz, but they weren’t prepared to immediately deter and act on them.”
Iranians this week responded to a 15-point US peace proposal with its own conditions: an end to the war, reparations for what’s been destroyed and recognition of Iran’s ownership of the strait.
“It’s the last arrow in the Iran regime’s quiver in its ability to affect the global economy,” retired colonel and former US diplomat Joel Rayburn told The Post.
While America isn’t directly dependent on the strait for fuel, which mostly goes to Asia and Europe, the closure has impacted global energy and transportation costs while sapping income for Arab allies.
“If Iran keeps control of the strait it will triumph it as a victory and allow them to retain its influence,” Rayburn said.
“[Trump] can’t leave them with the means to disrupt the global economy — they’ve shown they will use it.”
