President claims Washington will be ‘guardian’ of waterway and seek reimbursement to provide security for vessels
Donald Trump has said the US will reinstate its naval blockade of Iran and charge a 20 per cent fee on cargo passing through the Strait of Hormuz, as Washington and Tehran battle for control of the critical waterway. In comments that came hours after the latest wave of US strikes on Iran, the US president said Washington would expect reimbursement for all goods shipped through the strait, adding the US would be its “guardian”.
“The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Monday. “We are reinstating . . . THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran’s ships or customers from entering or leaving. All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait. The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,’ but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security.”
Trump added this “process and formation” would start immediately. However, he did not specify how exactly the US would implement its plan for the strait, which Washington and Tehran claim to control.
Iran was supposed to gradually reopen the waterway after it signed an interim deal with the US last month to extend an April ceasefire. But after the US encouraged ships to transit along Oman’s coast, Iranian forces began targeting vessels it accused of using an “unauthorised” route through the waterway.
Even if the US is able to keep the corridor open along Oman’s coast, ships will be wary of Iranian attacks. Before the latest escalation, shipping companies had warned it would take time to restore confidence and bring down insurance premiums.
Oil prices extended their gains after Trump’s post, with Brent, the international benchmark, climbing more than 5 per cent on Monday to $80 a barrel. A 20 per cent US levy would add about $16 in cost to every barrel of crude oil passing through Hormuz, based on current prices, or about $32mn per supertanker using the strait.
Trump has previously suggested the US could charge a toll — and share the proceeds with Iran — but later backed away from the idea. His comments follow almost a week of tit-for-tat military exchanges that have risked the return to full-scale war and the collapse of the fragile ceasefire agreement between Washington and Tehran.
“We’re taking over the strait,” Trump told Fox News earlier on Monday. “We’re just going to hit them very hard, and we’re going to keep the strait, and we’ll probably run it.”
Iran has said several times that it would charge ships additional fees for insurance or a toll to transit the strait in the future, citing the need to cover security and environmental costs. Early in the conflict it said it would charge the largest oil tankers $2mn in bitcoin for use of the waterway. However, as part of the memorandum of understanding it signed with the US in June, Trump had lifted the blockade on Iranian ports and Tehran agreed that ships would be able to pass through the strait without being charged for 60 days.
Iran’s military command centre, Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, on Monday said Tehran would by no means “allow the US to interfere in the management” of the strait, its main point of leverage. “Iranian armed forces will forcefully confront any disruption or insecurity in the passage of commercial vessels and oil tankers” by the US military outside the “routes designated by and without authorisation” from the Iranian military, said a spokesperson for the headquarters.
The International Maritime Organization said there was “no legal basis through which to introduce mandatory tolls simply to transit through a strait”. “We have always been consistent . . . IMO stands firmly against charging fees for passage through straits used for international navigation,” it said.
Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with the failure to reopen the strait to ease a global energy crisis. His approval ratings have taken a hit from the war, while voters contend with higher petrol prices ahead of crucial midterm elections in November. Trump said talks had been held with Iran over the weekend for 11 hours in which “everything was agreed to” but “then they broke it. They always break it.”
The US had carried out its fifth wave of strikes on Iran in a week on Sunday, hitting what it said were targets including air-defence systems, missile and drone sites and other Iranian military infrastructure. It said the strikes came after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired at a commercial vessel and said US forces had intercepted an Iranian cruise missile and drone.
In response, the IRGC said its forces had carried out multiple rounds of retaliatory operations against US military bases and other targets around the region.
Shipping traffic through the strait on Monday had fallen to a trickle. No ships passed through a US-administered route close to Oman’s coastline with their GPS signal on and several ships turned back despite approaching the strait on Sunday. Shipping analysts said it appeared that a small number of ships had sailed through the strait without their GPS signal on, but the numbers remained very low.
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