DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States is “reinstating” a blockade on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and, in a seeming policy reversal, will charge other ships for safe passage. Iran has insisted it controls the critical waterway, as another exchange of fire threatened a return to all-out war.
The U.S. had until now said the strait should remain open to all without tolls, as it was before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Any attempt by the U.S. or Iran to charge fees would violate global norms on freedom of navigation and raise tensions, likely causing further economic disruption far beyond the region.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose 7.8 per cent to US$81.92 a barrel on Monday, still well below the nearly $120 reached at the height of the war.
Exchanges of fire in recent days, sparked by Iranian attacks on ships, had already cast further doubt on the interim peace deal reached last month. Washington had lifted a blockade it imposed in mid-April as part of that deal, which also called for the strait to be fully reopened.
“We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE,” Trump said on social media. “All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait.”
The president said the U.S. would be “reimbursed” by 20 per cent of the value of cargo to help cover “any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security.”
The U.S. military said it will resume its blockade of Iranian ports Tuesday at 4 p.m. EDT.
The struggle over the strait is escalating
Iran asserts it has the right to manage traffic through the strait and potentially charge fees in accordance with the interim peace deal. The U.S. has disputed that.
Iran on Monday vowed to fight back against any U.S. interference in the strait. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi mocked Trump on social media and used his support for tolls to legitimize Iran’s position.
“POTUS is absolutely right. Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service,” Araghchi wrote on X. “Iran has always been the GUARDIAN of the Strait and will remain so FOREVER. 20% is of course too much. We will be fair.”
The International Maritime Organization, the United Nations agency overseeing international shipping, said it was waiting to find out more about Trump’s proposal but remained opposed to tolls for passage through international waterways.
“There is no legal basis through which to introduce mandatory tolls simply to transit through a strait,” it said in a statement.
The U.S. had opposed charging fees in the strait
Meeting with Gulf leaders late last month, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken forcefully against Iran charging fees for transit through the strait.
“That’s international waterway. There isn’t a nation on Earth that supports having to pay money to go through the straits,” Rubio told reporters in Bahrain on June 25.
Rubio also said there was “zero support among the Gulf countries for any sort of toll or fees or anything that charges for the use of international waters. The president’s made it clear that’s not going to happen.”
A fifth of the world’s oil and gas passed through the strait before Iran effectively shut it down at the start of the war, driving up global prices of energy, fertilizer and other goods. Traffic had picked up after last month’s agreement but remained well below prewar levels.
The American military has tried to establish a route through the strait along the coast of Oman that would be outside of Iranian control. Iran has attacked ships using that route, saying the U.S. is violating the interim peace deal. The U.S. has attacked Iran in response, drawing Iranian attacks on U.S.-allied Arab states.
U.S. strikes as allied Arab states report a wave of attacks
The U.S. military said it struck dozens of sites on Monday in response to an Iranian attack on a container ship the day before, including air defence systems, radar sites, missile and drone equipment, and small boats. It said it used drone ships for the first time to hit an Iranian ship maintenance facility and submarine on Sunday.
Missile alert sirens sounded three times Monday in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. There was no immediate word on damage.
Separately, Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry said its consulate in Iraq had been attacked. It did not immediately blame anyone for the attack or disclose damages or casualties.
The oil-rich kingdom -- home to several U.S. military bases -- also condemned Iran and “its factions and militias loyal to it in Iraq” for attacking what it described as “several border points” and a maritime oil drilling platform that belonged to the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.
In Jordan, the kingdom’s military said it shot down four Iranian missiles in an incident that “resulted in zero casualties or material damage.” Jordan also hosts U.S. military forces and aircraft.
In Iran, authorities reported attacks in Hormozgan, Khuzestan and Markazi provinces and said at least two people were killed, according to state-run IRNA news agency. Semiofficial Iranian media also reported strikes in the eastern Sistan and Baluchestan province, which is on a coast of the Gulf of Oman.
Iran blames the U.S. for the chaos in the region
The attacks on Iran continued hours after the U.S. ended its strikes -- again raising the possibility that Gulf Arab states were retaliating. There were unclaimed attacks on Iran on Thursday.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei blamed Washington for the chaos gripping the region. He said Iran wouldn’t agree to visits by the International Atomic Energy Agency to nuclear sites the U.S. bombed in 2025. That’s where Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is believed to be entombed.
Trump suggested last week that the interim deal in the war was “over” and the U.S. ended waivers allowing Iran to sell crude oil on the open market in U.S. dollars. But mediators, including Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt, have continued efforts to reach a final agreement to end the war.
Iran and the U.S. are nearly halfway through the 60-day period in which they were supposed to negotiate such an agreement, which was also supposed to address Iran’s disputed nuclear program.
Boak reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Mae Anderson in New York, Konstantin Toropin in Washington, Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Stella Martany in Irbil, Iraq, contributed to this report.
Jon Gambrell and Josh Boak, The Associated Press
