That agreement was supposed to reopen a waterway that is key to world energy supplies and give negotiators time to hammer out a permanent end to the war. Instead, fighting has once again engulfed the region, threatened the global economy and brought warnings to commercial airlines.
The focus of the conflict now is the Strait, through which a fifth of all traded crude oil and natural gas passed in peacetime. Iran effectively shut the passage during the war by attacking and threatening ships — a tactic that proved its greatest strategic advantage. It sent the price of oil, fertilizer and other goods soaring at a time when world leaders were already struggling to address rising costs.
Iran has more recently attacked ships moving through the strait on a route overseen by the U.S. military that is outside Tehran’s control, setting off tit-for-tat strikes.
On Monday, Trump said the U.S. would reimpose a blockade on Iranian ports and begin charging ships fees equivalent to 20% of their cargo to defray the costs of securing the strait. He backed off on the fees a day later, while the blockade is set to come back into force in the coming hours.
“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,” Trump said on social media.
The president said the investments “will be MASSIVE,” though it’s unclear if these would be new commitments relative to what Trump announced after a visit last year to the Middle East.
