United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday dropped the idea of charging a 20% fee on all cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, and said he would instead take trade and investment deals with the Gulf states.
The change of plan comes a day after Trump proposed charging a 20% fee to guard the waterway.
“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,” he said in a post on Truth Social.
Trump did not mention any commitments by Gulf states, saying, “Investments will be massive but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future.”
Shortly after Trump made the 20% fee proposal on Monday, the UN’s shipping agency said it opposed fees on ships passing through maritime waterways but added it would await more details of what Trump had in mind.
In his post on Tuesday, Trump declared the Strait of Hormuz was open to all ship traffic except for Iran.
“We will therefore have a full blockade, but only on ships coming to and from Iranian ports, or carrying anything have to do with Iranian cargo,” he said.
Iran introduces bill to parliament to regulate transit through Hormuz
An Iranian lawmaker said on Tuesday that a new bill was submitted to parliament on the regulation of transit through the Strait of Hormuz amid military escalation with the US over the waterway.
The bill was submitted “last night, coinciding with the downing of US drones”, Ebrahim Azizi, head of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, wrote on X.
“We remain steadfast in defending our red lines, particularly regarding the management of the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.
“This is the first step; subsequent measures are forthcoming,” Aziz warned.
The Strait of Hormuz will never reopen through United States attacks and “respecting the rights of the Iranian people” is the only path to restoring passage through the strategic waterway, an Iranian military spokesman said Tuesday.
The Islamic republic has conducted drone and missile strikes against US strategic assets in Kuwait, as well as an American vessel, according to IRNA.
The Army’s Public Relations said early on Tuesday that following the hostility and aggression by the United States against Iran, the army struck the communication systems, fuel depots, Patriot system, control tower, and ammunition warehouse of the US army in Kuwait earlier in the day using its explosive laden drones.
It added that the Navy of the Islamic Republic, in response to missile attacks on certain military sites, targeted a hostile American vessel with cruise missile fire.
One Indian crew member was killed and eight others were wounded when two Emirati oil tankers were struck by Iranian cruise missiles in the Strait of Hormuz, the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday, in the latest escalation in the strategic waterway.
Having choked off shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is now signaling it could play its most dangerous card yet: using Yemen’s Houthi allies to shut the Bab el-Mandeb gateway to the Red Sea, opening a new front against Washington and putting two of the world’s most vital energy arteries at risk.
As US strikes deepen inside Iran and Houthi attacks escalate in tandem, analysts say Tehran is widening the conflict and seeking to increase pressure on Washington by extending the threat to global trade and energy supplies beyond the Gulf.
A senior Yemeni official warned on Monday that the country’s armed forces were prepared to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait – a move he said could send oil prices soaring to $200 a barrel – if Saudi Arabia continued to attack Yemen, according to a report on Iran’s Press TV website.