Any agreement allowing Iran to charge fees in the Strait of Hormuz would set a “dangerous precedent” for global trade, Vincent Clerc, the chief executive of the shipping giant Maersk, said in an interview this week.
Iran has threatened to monetize its continuing control of the strait, the door to the Persian Gulf. Now with the United States and Iran moving toward an agreement to restore transit in the gulf, whether Iran can charge for passage remains an outstanding issue. President Trump has said that ships cannot be subject to any tolls, in accordance with international law. Iran has said it will impose fees, something that it did not do before the war.
The preliminary deal, expected to be signed by both sides on Friday in Switzerland, would start a 60-day cease-fire while negotiators hash out what to do about Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, its proxy war with Israel and other issues. Neither country has publicly released the text of the deal.
Mr. Clerc, 54, said any provision that allowed Iran to charge for passage would “create, in my book, a very dangerous precedent.”
“If any geographical point can be suddenly weaponized and leveraged for money, and then closed again at the whim of a certain government or authorities, of course, that’s for us — it’s a concerning development,” he said. “You have to wonder then what’s next.”
Iran’s threats have shifted how companies and countries view the world’s vital maritime points. There is no cheaper way to move goods than by sea. But, Mr. Clerk said, “if people start to weaponize certain routes, it’s going to quickly erode this.”
A career shaped by maritime crises
Mr. Clerc, born and raised in Rossens, a village in Switzerland, has spent his career at Maersk. In 2023, soon after he became chief executive, the Iranian-backed Houthis escalated their attacks on the Red Sea, one of the world’s most important shipping routes. The attacks upended global trade, forcing ships to avoid the Suez Canal and reroute an extra 4,000 miles around Africa. Even today, most container ships are adding 10 or more days of travel to avoid the Red Sea.
Mr. Clerc’s office overlooks a stretch of the Copenhagen harbor that is a short walk from the Little Mermaid, the city’s famous waterfront sculpture inspired by the 1837 fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. A base for Denmark’s navy is just across the harbor, and in the summer, the Danish royal family’s 257-foot-long yacht is often moored in the waters outside the office.
Maersk, the second-largest shipping container company by capacity, has sailed ships through every major maritime trade chokepoint across the globe. Founded in 1904, the company operates more than 700 owned or chartered vessels and brought in $54 billion in revenue last year. Its ships carry goods from Asia to Northern Europe and the Mediterranean, between Europe and North America, and between China and the Persian Gulf.
Hope that trade routes may emerge from months of lockdown
Fourteen vessels went through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, more than on any day so far this month, according to Windward, a maritime analysis firm. The traffic was a sign that ship operators were feeling more confident after the United States and Iran announced a cease-fire deal, the firm said.
Among the ships that exited the strait were at least two Iranian supertankers, which left the perimeter of the U.S. Navy blockade with a combined 3.8 million barrels of Iranian oil, according to TankerTrackers, a maritime data company. They were Iran’s first crude oil exports in two months.
Still, far fewer ships were moving than the 130 ships that went through the strait daily before the war. Major shipping companies said they would wait for more clarity on the agreement before deciding to move their ships.
One of Maersk’s ships, the Alliance Fairfax, got out of the Persian Gulf in May under U.S. protection, but the company has deemed it too risky for the other ships to leave.
Mr. Clerc said he would not allow any of Maersk’s five ships to pass through the strait until it was clear what routes they should take to avoid sea mines. He would also need assurances from Iran that it would not attack.
“There’s been a couple of times where it was declared open and was not really open, so we don’t want to find out by having our people in harm’s way that it’s not open,” Mr. Clerc said. More than 100 seafarers are on board the five stranded ships. Since the war began, drones hit Maersk terminals in Bahrain and Oman. Two ships were also hit — one by shrapnel and debris, and another in the hull by a drone, he said.
With access to the Persian Gulf cut off, Maersk employed workarounds. It has delivered 44,000 containers of goods such as furniture, electronics and food to Gulf countries by rail and truck. Cargo is unloaded from ships at the Red Sea port of Jeddah, from where it is driven across Saudi Arabia to Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. Truckers have come for the work from Jordan, Iraq and Turkey to meet high demand. Other products are unloaded in Salalah, Oman, and driven to the United Arab Emirates.
But the land routes cost Maersk about $1,000 extra per container. Over time, this will lead to an erosion of profits for retailers and higher costs for consumers, Mr. Clerc said.
Whatever the terms of any final agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has shown that it can create a global chokehold on trade through attacks, imposing a blockade on ships or charging for passage. The last three months are likely to leave a lasting effect on the way trade is conducted around the world.
“There are certain threats and things that once you’ve put that on the table, once it’s been there, it’s just not the same anymore,” Mr. Clerc said.
Peter Eavis contributed reporting from New York.
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