Iran FM schools Trump on Persian Gulf after 'Strait of Trump' post

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says US President Donald Trump correctly uses the age-old name “Persian Gulf,” rather than the “fake” name promoted by the Pentagon, but at the same time makes a “terrible mistake” by misnaming the Strait of Hormuz.

Araghchi made the remarks in a post on X on Thursday, hours after Trump shared on his Truth Social an image of the strategic, semi-enclosed sea of the Indian Ocean with the historical name “Persian Gulf” accurately labeled and highlighted in green by Iran’s top diplomat.

However, the American president intentionally misnamed the Strait of Hormuz on the same image, using the fabricated label “Strait of Trump.”

“Today is Persian Gulf Day in Iran, marking our ancestors’ expulsion of the Portuguese from the Strait of Hormuz 400 years ago. POTUS uses the correct term ‘Persian Gulf’, not the Pentagon’s fake version. But calling Hormuz anything else is indeed a ‘terrible mistake’,” Araghchi said, as Iranians commemorated National Persian Gulf Day.

Each year on April 30, Iran marks its historic 1622 victory over colonial occupation along its southern coast, a 400-year-old milestone that solidified Iran’s sovereign control over the Strait of Hormuz.

Explainer: What's Persian Gulf Day and why it matters?

The Persian Gulf is significant for a host of reasons, most importantly for its abundant oil and gas reserves. That’s one reason Western powers, including the US, have sought to increase their footprint in the strategic waterway.

The Pentagon’s CENTCOM command, whose sprawling military empire rests on a web of colonial-era bases scattered across Persian Gulf Arab states, deliberately uses the fabricated label “A-r-a-bian Gulf” to pander to its host dictatorships, a craven act of historical erasure that Tehran condemns as a direct affront to the region’s 2,500-year Persian heritage.

While the United Nations and the US Board on Geographic Names have long recognized the waterway’s sole legitimate name as the “Persian Gulf,” CENTCOM whose forces are embedded in at least six Persian Gulf monarchies routinely sidesteps the correct term to appease its Arab allies. 

Iran has said America’s bases are illegitimate, and so is the name they fabricate to justify their presence.

Meanwhile, Trump's misnaming of geographical places is not unprecedented. In January 2025, he signed an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America" and reverting North America's highest peak from Denali back to "Mount McKinley".

He even admitted he considered calling the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of Trump" before deciding against it.

This year’s observance of the National Persian Gulf Day comes exactly two months after the US and Israeli regimes launched an unprovoked military aggression against Iran on February 28.

Forty days into the war, a two-week ceasefire brokered by Pakistan took effect on April 8, but talks between Washington and Tehran in Islamabad collapsed due to excessive US demands and shifting positions.

Trump then unilaterally extended the truce while ordering the continuation of an illegal blockade against Iranian vessels and ports, in violation of the ceasefire terms.

With Iran simply trying to fight back an unprovoked war of aggression, every tanker must pass within range of Iranian shores, placing the Islamic Republic at the guard post of the world's most important energy passage and giving Tehran a key to the entire crisis.

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