Donald Trump has reversed his threat to impose a 20% toll on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, replacing it with trade and investment deals with Gulf states after opposition from the UK government.
Trump's reversal on tolls
The US president announced the so-called “reimbursement fee” just 24 hours earlier, but on Tuesday said he had decided to replace it with “trade and investment deals” following “highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership”. Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the Gulf channel was open to all vessels except Iran “because of their lying, violent, malicious leadership”.
Trump stated: “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. Those Investments will be massive but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future. As everyone is aware, we have the largest Dollar Investment into the United States, of any Country in History, but these new Investments will make that Number even larger, and we will see Factories, Plants, and Equipment pour into the United States at Historic levels, which will create additional millions of High Paying American Jobs.”
UK opposition to the tolls
Outgoing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had called for unrestricted access through the strait, while Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said she was against the imposition of charges. Speaking to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Cooper said: “We continue to oppose tolls and charges. And in fact, that’s the discussion that I had with American colleagues last week while we were at Nato. We were talking about that we could not end up with tolls and with a system on the Strait of Hormuz that would undermine the freedom of navigation and the law of the sea. I think what we’re seeing happening at the moment is the escalation of rhetoric around the conflict itself and the putting on of pressure. But our position remains the same. We support freedom of navigation. We are opposed to tolls in the Strait of Hormuz, just as we are everywhere else.”
Liberal Democrats' criticism
The Liberal Democrats had been more strident in their criticism of Trump’s proposed fee, branding it “state-backed highway robbery”, “an act of economic extortion” and “a flagrant violation of international law”.
Broader context
The US is to reintroduce a blockade of Iranian ports after renewed clashes with Tehran. Cooper blamed Iran for “an increasing of pressure on all sides” by attacking commercial shipping in the southern shipping route in Omani waters, saying the move “totally undermines the law of the sea”.
