Published July 13, 2026 at 5:44 PM ET · Updated July 13, 2026 at 10:02 PM ET
Trump says United States should control Hormuz and be paid for it; Iran rejects proposal
3 independent outlets are covering this story. Verification: Confirmed — reported independently by wire/mainstream and conservative outlets. Patriot Watch links to original reporting; we don't republish it.
The U.S. military struck Iran for a third consecutive night after IRGC forces targeted vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump proposed that the United States should take control of the strait and be paid for it. Iran rejected the proposal.
Patriot Watch first flagged this story 4 hr ago, when NBC News reported it. Coverage has since grown to 3 independent outlets, including 1 wire/mainstream feed. The most recent report came 3 hr ago from ZeroHedge. Verification tier: Confirmed — reported independently by wire/mainstream and conservative outlets.
⚖ The Constitutional Angle
The Prize Cases recognized that the President may institute a blockade without waiting for Congress to declare war. But Youngstown held that every exercise of presidential power must come from an act of Congress or the Constitution, and where Congress has withheld authority the President cannot act. Seizing a foreign strait to charge tolls exceeds any wartime blockade and has no source in either.
The Prize Cases (The Brig Amy Warwick; The Schooner Crenshaw; The Barque Hiawatha; The Schooner Brilliante) 67 U.S. (2 Black) 635 (1863)
Vote: 5-4 · Opinion: Grier
The President had the right, jure belli, to institute a blockade of ports held by states in rebellion — which neutrals were bound to respect — without waiting for a congressional declaration of war.
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (The Steel Seizure Case) — CROSS-REFERENCE ENTRY 343 U.S. 579 (1952)
Vote: 6-3 · Opinion: Black
SHORT FORM (full apparatus lives in the presidential-immunity entry): President Truman's Korean War seizure of the steel mills was unlawful — the President's power 'must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself,' and neither source supplied it, particularly where Congress had considered and withheld seizure authority. Youngstown supplies the Jackson framework through which Dames & Moore, Zivotofsky, and the 2026 IEEPA tariff decision were all argued: emergency does not create power; it marks the occasion for exercising powers that must already exist.
Precedent facts from the PW Law Library — primary-source verified & independently audited
