President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will collect a 20 percent fee, or toll, from cargo ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Yet, by the account of the Trump administration’s own officials, levying such a fee runs counter to international law.
Trump made the announcement last Monday amid intense, continuing tension between Iran and the United States over control of the waterway, which is critical to global energy supply.
Over the past week the two countries have struck and counter-struck each other several times over the passage, effectively collapsing the roughly month-long ceasefire between them.
The Middle East war began in February this year with US and Israeli strikes targeting Iran. Since then, Iran has intermittently attacked commercial ships passing through the strait, a tactic meant to force vessels onto routes closer to its own coast. It is thought Iran is doing so to lay the groundwork for collecting tolls of its own in future.
Announcing the toll plan, Trump said the fee would recoup the cost of the security the US military provides to ships using the waterway. In a social-media post, he wrote: “The Strait of Hormuz is open, and it will remain open without Iran’s cooperation.”
Trump said the United States would collect the 20 percent fee to meet “any and all necessary costs,” describing it as fair, and added that Washington would once again begin blockading Iran’s ports.
It is not the first time Trump has made such a threat. He raised the possibility even after signing a temporary ceasefire agreement with Iran last month — an accord a clause of which Tehran had interpreted as giving it authority over the Strait of Hormuz.
The memorandum had also stated that for 60 days after the agreement no country could collect any toll, while leaving open the option of imposing the fee thereafter.
Much remains unclear. Trump has given no details on how the 20 percent fee would be calculated or collected, and neither he nor his advisers has explained why his stance conflicts with the statements of the administration’s top officials.
Last month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said no toll could be imposed on the Strait of Hormuz, noting: “No country is permitted to collect a toll or fee on any international waterway. That is the current international law.”
A toll announcement on one side and an order to blockade Iran’s ports again on the other — taken together, Trump’s moves suggest his options for ending the war are steadily narrowing.
Experts say that if a 20 percent fee were imposed on the value of a ship’s cargo, the cost of moving oil through the strait could more than double.
For a large tanker carrying 2 million barrels of oil, for example, the fee could add more than $30 million in extra cost — a burden ordinary consumers would inevitably feel through higher prices.
Experts add that, for operators of ships moving through the region, the escalation of the Iran-US conflict is at present a greater worry than the fee itself.
Southeast Asia’s Strait of Malacca offers a possible point of comparison — another vital waterway, through which about 23 million barrels of oil pass each day, and which Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia manage jointly.
Ships using that waterway pay only when they need a specific service — help towing a vessel, say, or pilotage guidance through the narrowest stretches. They pay nothing merely to transit the passage.
The political and security situation of the Strait of Malacca is also entirely different: there is no major conflict among the three managing countries, which have avoided war among themselves for nearly six decades.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi hit back after Trump’s announcement. Mocking the decision sharply on social media, he said it was rather laughable for Trump to announce a toll himself when his administration had rejected Iran’s own idea of collecting tolls.
Araghchi did agree with one of Trump’s points, saying he was “absolutely right” that whoever ensures safe passage through the strait should be compensated — before claiming that it is in fact Iran that provides the waterway’s security.
Araghchi then added, in a plainly mocking tone: “Of course, a 20 percent fee is far too much. We will keep a fair fee.” Ever since Tehran effectively closed the waterway early in the current war, Iranian officials have repeatedly signalled a wish to earn money from the strait.
Iran and Oman, which lies to the south of the strait, are reported to be jointly exploring ways to collect fees from passing ships. Oman’s proposal is essentially modelled on the Strait of Malacca, though whether the fee would be mandatory or voluntary is still unclear.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report