President Trump on Tuesday walked back his statement that the United States would levy steep fees on cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, adding to a string of about-faces that have highlighted his lack of a clear path out of the war with Iran.
Mr. Trump’s reversal came just one day after he announced that the United States would charge fees worth 20 percent of a ship’s cargo, despite months of public insistence from his own administration that any such fees would violate international law.
Mr. Trump has decided instead to move forward with trade and investment deals with Persian Gulf states, he said on Tuesday. The idea of such deals, the details of which remain scarce, are the latest turn in an intensifying battle between Iran and the United States to control the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial artery for global energy supplies. The two countries have traded attacks over the waterway for the past week, in effect shattering their month-old cease-fire and sending oil prices on a roller coaster.
Here’s what to know.
What did Trump say?
Mr. Trump announced his reversal in a lengthy social media post on Tuesday.
“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,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform.
Mr. Trump later told reporters in the Oval Office that various “kings and emirs” of Gulf allies had called him and convinced him to allow them to invest in U.S. companies instead of paying the fees, which experts said could more than double the cost of shipping oil through the strait if levied at 20 percent.
“I don’t think anybody should be able to charge a fee for the strait,” Mr. Trump said, adding that he felt his new plan was “much better.”
When he initially announced his plan for the toll, the president had described it as a way for the United States to recover the cost of providing military protection to vessels using the waterway. It was “a matter of FAIRNESS,” he wrote in a social media post.
In walking back the notion, Mr. Trump wrote that the United States was set to restart a “FULL Blockade” of Iranian ports and the strait was “open to ALL Ship traffic except for Iran.” (In fact, shipping traffic through the waterway has nearly entirely ceased as the two countries exchange strikes.)
What had Trump administration officials said about a U.S. toll?
After Iranian officials repeatedly said that they intended to monetize the strait, senior U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, spent months insisting that the Trump administration was vehemently opposed to the imposition of any tolls or fees in the waterway.
“No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That’s existing international law,” Mr. Rubio said.
This didn’t deter Mr. Trump from announcing his own toll. He raised the possibility last month after signing a temporary cease-fire agreement with Iran, even though that deal included language that Tehran has interpreted to mean it has authority over the strait. The memorandum of understanding also said that no country would collect tolls for 60 days, though it left open the possibility for such charges beyond that.
What do we know about the new investment deals?
Very little, beyond what Mr. Trump has promised. It remained unclear on Tuesday which countries had agreed to invest in the United States and how exactly they would do so.
The investments from the Gulf states would be “MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future,” Mr. Trump said on social media.
“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!” he added.
