President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the United States is pivoting away from an earlier threat of a “reimbursement fee” for ships going through the Strait of Hormuz while also narrowing his plans for a blockade of Iranian vessels transiting the waterway.
The strait, Trump declared on Truth Social, “is open to ALL Ship traffic except for Iran,” pinning the blame for the restrictions on Tehran’s leadership. The blockade, he said, will affect only “ships coming to and from Iranian ports, or carrying anything have to do with Iranian cargo.”
The president also said he would replace a “20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States.”
The U.S. and Iran traded strikes overnight, as the prospect of tolls on ships and a reimposition of the U.S. blockade spooked markets and alarmed shipping experts.
European markets fell, and oil prices hit a one-month high, with Brent crude futures climbing above $86 a barrel Tuesday morning, after Trump said the U.S. would be “reimbursed” 20 percent on all cargo shipped through the strait “for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World.” Trump also said he would reinstate a blockade of Iranian ports, which U.S. Central Command said would go into effect Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern time.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi hit back at Trump’s comments.
“POTUS is absolutely right,” Araghchi said in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek post on X. “Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service. Iran has always been the GUARDIAN of the Strait and will remain so FOREVER. 20% is of course too much. We will be fair.”
Centcom said it completed a wave of strikes against Iran late Monday, in a five-hour mission designed to degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial ships. The next morning, Iran said it had carried out retaliatory strikes against U.S. assets in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain, according to state media reports.
Jordan’s military said it intercepted four missiles from Iranian territory, according to the country’s state news agency. Bahrain’s defense force also said it intercepted Iranian attacks, accusing Tehran of a “clear violation” of international law.
The United Arab Emirates also said Monday that Iran targeted two of its national oil tankers, the Mombasa and Al Bahiyah, with cruise missiles while they transited the Strait of Hormuz inside Oman’s territorial waters. An Indian national died and eight others were injured in the attack, it said. India’s Foreign Ministry denounced the strikes in a statement Tuesday.
The latest attacks follow days of tit-for-tat clashes that have seen commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz targeted as the two sides battle for control of the narrow waterway — a critical choke point for around 20 percent of the world’s oil and natural gas supplies. The preliminary peace agreement signed by the U.S. and Iran in June all but collapsed after failed talks over the weekend.
The prospect of tolls for passage through the strait alarmed maritime authorities and members of the shipping industry who have flatly condemned the notion, arguing freedom of navigation is an essential part of international law.
German shipping firm Hapag-Lloyd said in a statement Tuesday that charging tolls for passage through international waters would be “fundamentally wrong.”
“Tolls for infrastructure such as the Suez Canal or Panama Canal are different, because they reflect major infrastructure investments. That is not the case in the Strait of Hormuz,” it said.
The International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency that regulates shipping, said it was aware of Trump’s comments and was awaiting more details.
“IMO stands firmly against charging fees for passage through straits used for international navigation,” a spokesperson said Tuesday. “There is no legal basis through which to introduce mandatory tolls simply to transit through a strait.”
Richard Meade, editor in chief of the maritime trade publication Lloyd’s List Intelligence, said Trump’s proposal has so far been met with “expletive-laden curiosity” in the maritime industry, as members grapple with the idea floated without accompanying detail or structure.
“There is no legal precedent here, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Iran trying to impose tolls or the U.S.,” he said, adding that there was no legal basis for the charges. He also warned that it could evolve to encompass other geopolitical choke points like the Malacca Strait or South China Sea.
“Freedom of navigation, the ability to trade internationally, is the system upon which globalized trade is based. You are essentially talking about rewiring the entirety of the global trading system to resolve this problem,” he said. “What happens in Hormuz does not stay in Hormuz.”
Michelle Brouhard, head of policy and geopolitical risk at maritime intelligence company Kpler, said Trump’s proposal is significant in that it frames maritime security as a service rather than a public good.
“If that approach gains traction, future debates over strategic waterways will no longer focus solely on access. They will increasingly focus on financing,” she wrote in a research note Monday. “The central question will no longer be who protects global commerce, but who pays for its protection.”
Mohamed El Chamaa contributed to this report.
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