U.S. President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that the United States will impose what he called a “full blockade” on vessels traveling to or from Iranian ports or carrying Iranian cargo, while abandoning a proposed 20% fee on cargo transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
“Oil is flowing like never before,” Trump wrote, crediting U.S. forces for securing the strategic waterway. “The Strait of Hormuz is open to all ship traffic except for Iran.”
Trump said he had decided, after what he described as productive discussions with Middle Eastern leaders, to scrap the proposed shipping and security fee on all cargo passing through the strait in favor of “trade and investment deals that the various Gulf states will be making into the United States.”
“Those investments will be massive but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future,” Trump wrote, adding that the agreements would bring “factories, plants and equipment pour into the United States at historic levels.”
Trump also reiterated his administration’s hard-line stance toward Tehran, writing that “the days of killing hundreds of thousands of people, including 52,000 protesters, are over,” and again declaring that “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”
