Trump Demands Iran Halt Tanker Fees as Strait of Hormuz Traffic Remains Blocked

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President Donald Trump escalated tensions over the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, demanding that Iran “better stop now” if it is charging tankers fees to pass through the critical waterway, which has been effectively closed to most traffic since the Iran‑US/Israel war began in late February and triggered the worst disruption to global energy supplies in modern history thehill. Despite a fragile two‑week ceasefire tied to reopening the strait, shipping data showed only a trickle of vessels moving through a corridor that normally carries about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil and gas cbsnews +1.

Is Iran Turning a Global Chokepoint Into a Revenue Stream?

Iranian oil and shipping bodies have pushed plans to formalize control of Hormuz, including proposals to charge roughly $1 per barrel in cryptocurrency for tankers to transit, combined with inspections framed as weapons checks euronews. Tehran has cast the move as both a security measure and a form of compensation after weeks of US‑Israeli strikes, with Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei vowing Iran will “control the strait” and seek payment for wartime damage cbsnews.

Maritime lawyers and industry associations warned that unilateral tolls at such a strategic chokepoint would be “an extreme outlier” that breaks with trade norms and could set a far‑reaching precedent for other narrow waterways, from the Malacca Strait to Bab el‑Mandeb abcnews. Western officials also flagged a legal thicket: Iran is not a party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and paying it in cryptocurrency could push shipowners into collision with US and EU sanctions enforcement euronews +2.

Oil Shock Rewrites the Gulf’s Winners and Losers

The near‑shutdown of Hormuz has already redrawn the region’s energy map. Brent crude surged about 60% in March and has hovered around or above $100 a barrel, delivering windfalls to producers with pipelines that bypass the strait, including Iran, Oman and Saudi Arabia, while hammering Iraq and Kuwait, which lack alternative routes and saw oil revenues plunge by more than 70% year‑on‑year, according to a Reuters analysis scmp. The International Energy Agency estimated more than 12 million barrels per day of regional output has been disrupted or shut in since the conflict began scmp.

On the water, tanker movements fell from roughly 100–120 transits a day before the war to a fraction of that, leaving an estimated 20,000 mariners stranded in or near the Persian Gulf and pushing insurance costs sharply higher cbsnews +1. While US officials insisted the strait was “open,” energy executives and Gulf leaders countered that access remained “restricted, conditioned and controlled,” and European governments moved toward naval escort plans rather than accepting any toll regime cbsnews +1.

The Bigger Picture

The clash over tolls has become a proxy for a larger struggle over who sets the rules of global trade at strategic chokepoints: coastal states asserting leverage, or a coalition of major powers and industry defending freedom of navigation. Even if the ceasefire holds and more ships begin to move, the episode has underscored how quickly a single waterway can jolt inflation, reorder regional fortunes and test alliances, reinforcing pressure on importers to diversify both supply routes and energy sources away from Hormuz‑dependent oil and gas scmp.

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Trump Demands Iran Halt Tanker Fees as Strait of Hormuz Traffic Remains Blocked

Is Iran Turning a Global Chokepoint Into a Revenue Stream?

Oil Shock Rewrites the Gulf’s Winners and Losers

The Bigger Picture