Day After Threat to Put Fees on Strait of Hormuz, Trump Says He Denounces Idea

U.S. President Donald Trump has swiftly backtracked his threat to impose a 20 percent fee on cargo that passes through the Strait of Hormuz, calling off the plan just a day after he announced it — and claiming that, in fact, he never supported such an idea.

Instead of the proposed 20 percent fee, the U.S. will be granted economic deals with other countries in the region in exchange for passage through the strait, Trump said, without providing any specifics.

“Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “Those Investments will be MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future.”

It’s unclear what investments Trump is referring to. Speaking to reporters in the White House on Tuesday, Trump said that he “was called by different people, different countries, kings and emirs” after his announcement on Monday morning. However, the Trump administration did not announce new major economic deals with Persian Gulf nations at the time that Trump announced his reversal.

Trump declared on Monday that the U.S. would, from then on, be known as the “guardian of the Hormuz Strait,” a seemingly unilateral declaration. He said that the U.S. would impose a 20 percent fee on cargo that passed through the strait, while the military would reimpose its blockade on Iranian ships. The blockade was initially lifted during the short-lived “memorandum of understanding” between Iran and the U.S. that began in June.

The logistics of Trump’s fee and guardianship plan were unclear, and directly contradicted the position of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said late last month that “no country is allowed” to charge fees on transit through the strait under international law.

The president echoed that sentiment after he backtracked on Tuesday.

Speaking of the supposed investments at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said, “I like that, actually, because I don’t think anybody should be able to charge a fee for the strait or for any other strait relationship in terms of other sections of the world.”

“But we were doing it as a reimbursement,” he added.

After Trump’s announcement on Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that he agreed that countries “should be compensated” for passage through the strait. “Iran has always been the GUARDIAN of the Strait and will remain so FOREVER. 20% is of course too much. We will be fair,” he said, making light of Trump’s threat in a post on social media.

The U.S. has continued its bombardments of Iran this week, hitting yet more sites across Iran on Tuesday as Iran retaliated on U.S. assets in surrounding states. Experts have warned that escalation may be inevitable as long as the level of strikes continues.