U.S. President Donald Trump on July 14 said he is backing away from a proposal he made a day earlier to charge cargo ships for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz amid fresh U.S. strikes against Iran.
In a Truth Social post, Trump said that his decision was “based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership.” He did not identify with whom he spoke.
“I have decided to replace the 20 percent United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States,” the president said. “Those Investments will be MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future.”
On Tuesday, Iran claimed that it had launched attacks on two supertankers in the Strait of Hormuz amid an escalation in its conflict with the United States, alleging that the tankers were “misled” by U.S. forces.
“The two rogue super tankers fell for the American deception, switched off their navigation systems, and disregarded multiple warnings issued by the Hormuz Strait Security Control Center,” state-run PressTV said, quoting a statement from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
“Any cooperation“ with the United States or ”any attempt to cross the mined route will bring nothing but regret, heavy damage, delays in the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and the risk of triggering a global energy crisis,” the article said.
While the IRGC did not provide other details about the tankers, the UK Maritime Trade Organization said on July 14 that two ships were struck in or near the Strait of Hormuz, with both reporting “being hit by a missile while transiting outbound on the southern route.”
The incidents come after the U.S. military launched strikes for a third night against Iranian sites and targets in response to Iran’s earlier attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Monday night that it conducted a five-hour-long operation to degrade Tehran’s capacity to attack commercial shipping in the Strait, a waterway through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas passes.
Meanwhile, CENTCOM said the military will resume its blockade of Iranian ports starting on July 14 at 4 p.m. ET after Trump vowed to reinstate it a day earlier.
The blockade and new attacks jeopardized a peace deal signed by both sides in June.
Iranian officials, through state-run media, have said that only Tehran should control the Strait and that Iran will retaliate against U.S. strikes.
On Monday night, Trump warned that the U.S. military would attack Pickaxe Mountain in Iran and would continue to strike the country hard.
Pickaxe Mountain, located near Iran’s heavily damaged Natanz uranium enrichment facility, is a heavily fortified site with two deeply buried tunnel complexes that experts assess as beyond the reach of the most powerful bunker buster bombs in the U.S. arsenal.
