Washington:
US President Donald Trump, who is threatening to “take out the entire” Iran if it does not release its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, has suggested the United States may be looking to charge a toll on the passage of vessels through the strategic waterways. The US leader was responding to a question about whether he would end the war while Iran was continuing to charge tolls for passage, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) passed in peacetime.
“What about us charging tolls? I’d rather do that than let them have them?” he responded.
If the United States moves ahead with the move, it would likely require direct American military control over Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean and lies mostly within Omani and Iranian territorial waters.
Trump also declared victory in the ongoing war, reiterating his claim that Iran has been militarily defeated, despite Iran’s sustained drone and missile attacks across the Middle East and its continuing blockade of Hormuz.
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