Evidence

Multiple independent outlets — JNS, The Jerusalem Post, Axios, and Al Jazeera — reported that (current, not former) President Donald Trump publicly stated the U.S. Navy had cleared or detonated all mines from the international waters of the Strait of Hormuz, quoting him directly: he wrote that mines had been 'removed and/or detonated' and warned Iran against re-mining. Background reporting from the Council on Foreign Relations, the Congressional Research Service, and Wikipedia's summary of the 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis confirms that Iran had indeed declared the Strait closed and halted cross-Strait traffic at the outset of the US-Israel-Iran conflict, consistent with the claim's context. Al Jazeera separately noted that despite Trump's mine-clearing claim, analysts and shipping risk assessors said the strait remained high-risk, and a Benzinga report noted Gavin Newsom publicly questioned the credibility of Trump's claim given earlier statements — but this is political pushback on trustworthiness, not a forensic debunking of whether the statement was made or whether mine-clearing occurred. No AFP, Reuters, Bellingcat, or EUvsDisinfo fact-check specifically addressing this claim was found.