President Donald Trump has decided that the United States is now the official landlord of one of the most important shipping lanes on Earth, and the rent is 20 percent of everything that floats through it.
As originally reported by Trending Views, Trump took to Truth Social on Monday to announce that the Strait of Hormuz is open for business, with or without Iran's cooperation, and that the U.S. will be collecting a 20 percent fee on all cargo shipped through the waterway to cover the cost of keeping it secure. Think of it as a global toll booth, except the toll booth has aircraft carriers.
"The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran," Trump wrote, also announcing the reinstatement of a blockade targeting Iranian ships and their customers while pledging free passage to everyone else. He added that the U.S. "will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World."
The Strait of Hormuz historically handles roughly 20 percent of the world's oil trade, so this is not exactly a toll booth at a rural bridge nobody uses. This is the choke point that makes the global economy sweat every time someone so much as sneezes in its general direction.
Trump doubled down during a Fox News interview, making it clear this is not a volunteer gig anymore. "We're going to keep the strait, and we'll probably run it," he said. "We can't be expected to do that for nothing, unlike we had for many years. We guarded it for nothing, and now we're going to guard it, we're going to get paid for guarding it. A lot of money."
He even floated a nickname for the operation. "Maybe we'll call it the guardian angel of the strait," Trump told Fox News. "And we should be reimbursed for that."
The timing is spicy, to say the least. The announcement arrived alongside fresh U.S. strikes against Iran on Monday. Trump declared last week that a temporary ceasefire signed in mid-June was "over." That ceasefire had specifically prohibited anyone from charging tolls on ships passing through the strait. Iran had been angling to do exactly that, which Washington shut down. Now Washington appears to be doing its own version of the thing it told Iran it could not do.
Markets reacted about as calmly as you would expect, which is to say they did not. Oil prices climbed Monday morning and stocks dropped as investors did the math on what a prolonged disruption to Persian Gulf shipping would look like.
Whether this guardian angel arrangement actually sticks or becomes the next major flashpoint in an already volatile standoff remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: free security detail is officially off the menu.
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