President Trump’s latest threat to impose fees on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz contradicts weeks of declarations by his top aides that no country can charge tolls or fees for passage through the vital waterway that has been a contested space in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.
Mr. Trump told Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” on Monday that America was “going to get paid for guarding” the strait, adding that the United States “will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20 percent,” for all cargo that passes through the waters. Mr. Trump has made remarks before about the United States collecting tolls in the strait, which for decades has been considered for an international waterway.
He and his aides have not explained how his position squares with repeated contradictory public assertions by the likes of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also Mr. Trump’s White House national security adviser.
Addressing the issue during a visit to the Middle East in late June, Mr. Rubio said: “No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That’s existing international law. That’s the way it is in international waterways all over the world, and that’s the way we expect it’ll be here.”
Mr. Rubio spoke before attending a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a group of oil-exporting Gulf Arab countries, after which the United States signed a joint statement declaring that the nations “rejected any tolls, fees or attempts to assert control over the strait.”
Vice President JD Vance took the same position on June 18 as he discussed a cease-fire deal between the United States and Iran that was aimed at reopening the waterway. “We believe international waterways should be free of tolls,” he said during a news conference.
But Mr. Trump said on June 20 that the United States could collect tolls. His statement came six days after he signed an agreement with Iran that formally started the cease-fire to allow for talks on a broader peace settlement. The agreement recognized Iran’s power in the strait and said no country would collect tolls for 60 days, though it left the possibility for tolls open beyond that.
In that statement, Mr. Trump said there would be no tolls after that period either, “unless they are imposed by and for the United States of America, should the deal not be completed, for services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East for purposes of both past, present, and future reimbursement of costs.”
It was unclear what Mr. Trump meant by “services rendered.” The U.S. military tried to send naval escorts with commercial tankers through the strait in early May, during a tentative cease-fire with Iran, in what the Trump administration called Project Freedom. But Mr. Trump had to shut that down after less than 48 hours because the crown prince of Saudi Arabia objected to the United States using the country’s airspace for the venture.
Early in the war, the Iranian military effectively closed the strait by laying mines and threatening other attacks. That halted most of the export of a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas, extracted and made by Middle East producers. Iran then began asking shipping companies to pay up to $2 million per vessel for a guarantee of safe passages along a route through the strait that ran close to Iran’s coast.
After the failure of Project Freedom, the U.S. military began a quiet effort to give radio guidance to commercial tankers in order to direct them along a route by Oman’s coast, on the southern side of the strait and opposite Iran’s shore. But Iran attacked three ships traveling in that area last Tuesday, and the U.S. military said it could not guarantee the safe passage of ships. Tanker traffic has plummeted, sending global oil prices soaring.
