NPR's Rob Schmitz speaks with State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott about the with Iran and the hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals who have had their U.S. visa revoked. As the U.S. war with Iran continues to drag on, a deal to resolve the conflict remains elusive. Among the key sticking points is the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran and the U.S. simply cannot come to an agreement over this key waterway. And so, yesterday, President Trump proposed annexing it. PRES DONALD TRUMP: And after we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated...
TRUMP: Pretty soon I'll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States. SCHMITZ: We have many questions about the war with Iran. So earlier today, I spoke with U.S.
State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott. I asked him if the U.S. plans on declaring the Strait of Hormuz a U.S. territory, as President Trump stated. TOMMY PIGOTT: Well, look, the president - clearly talking about the levers that we have in this area here both economically and when it comes to the blockade, the fact that we've seen containers and other goods moving through the Strait of Hormuz, the fact that we see the Iranian regime losing hundreds of billions of dollars every single day.
The president - stating repeatedly about that economic argument and also the blockade argument, the impacts that the policies have had, in terms of leveraging and having that leverage when it comes to these conversations and these goals and also the fact he's been very clear on his objective from the beginning - that the Iranian regime cannot have a nuclear weapon. SCHMITZ: But it's the Strait of Hormuz, and he's saying he's going to declare it a U.S. territory. PIGOTT: Well, look, once again, the president, clearly speaking - the president's words speak for themselves.
But I can say once again, the fact that we and economic pressure being placed on the Iranian regime - we have hundreds of billions of dollars that the Iranian regime is losing every single day. We have the blockade of Iranian ships and Iranian ports. We have other containers moving through the strait, as the president has described, and we also have, from the State Department's perspective, and the Treasury Department continuing to enact sanctions and other policies to increase maximum pressure to deny the Iranian regime the revenue they need for their malign activities.
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