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Who would pay?
Would the fee apply to all cargo?
How would it be collected?
Would it be imposed on the value of the cargo or the transportation service?
Would it apply to vessels belonging to U.S. allies?
And perhaps most importantly: Could Washington legally impose such a charge on international shipping passing through an internationally important waterway?
Maritime-law experts expressed serious concerns.
One analysis calculated that a tanker carrying approximately $172 million worth of crude could face a fee of around $34 million under a 20% cargo-value charge. Cronkite News
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That would be an extraordinary cost.
Shipping companies would have had to determine whether to absorb it, pass it on to customers or avoid the route entirely.
Energy markets would then have had to account for the additional cost.
The result could have been a significant increase in the price of oil.
The fee lasted barely a day
What made the episode especially unusual was how quickly the policy changed.
Trump abandoned the 20% toll approximately 26 hours after announcing it.
Instead, he said Gulf states would make major investments in the United States. Cronkite News+1
The shift illustrated Trump’s transactional approach.
Rather than collect a fee from ships traveling through Hormuz, Washington would benefit from investment commitments by wealthy Gulf partners.
The precise value and structure of those investments became a subject of considerable interest.
But the political message was clear.
Trump was presenting American access to the Strait and U.S. military protection as assets that could be translated into economic benefits for the United States.
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Why Gulf countries mattered
The Gulf states occupy an awkward position in the crisis.
Countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar depend heavily on regional energy exports and maritime trade.
They also have strong security relationships with Washington.
At the same time, they do not necessarily want a prolonged war between the United States and Iran.
The Gulf economies could suffer enormously from an extended disruption in Hormuz.
Even countries that support American efforts to contain Iran have an interest in keeping commercial shipping moving.
That helps explain why a policy imposing an additional 20% charge on maritime traffic would have been problematic.
The fee would not have affected Iran alone.
It potentially would have affected allies and trading partners as well.
Trump’s subsequent decision to substitute investment commitments changed the equation.
Instead of directly taxing maritime traffic, the United States could claim economic benefits from its Gulf relationships while leaving commercial shipping less exposed to an additional American toll.
The legal problem
The proposed fee also triggered questions about international maritime law.
The Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway.
The principle of transit passage gives commercial vessels important rights to navigate international straits used for international navigation.
Experts quoted by Cronkite News argued that a blanket American fee could conflict with those principles. Cronkite News
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That does not mean every aspect of the blockade was automatically unlawful.
Naval blockades are governed by their own complex rules, particularly during armed conflict.
But imposing a commercial toll on international shipping is conceptually different from preventing Iranian vessels from operating.
The distinction matters.
A military operation directed at an adversary’s war effort raises one set of legal questions.
A unilateral charge imposed on international commercial traffic raises another.
That legal uncertainty was one reason the fee proposal generated immediate concern.
The economic calculation behind the blockade
Despite the controversy over the fee, the blockade itself had a clear economic objective.
Iran depends heavily on oil revenues.
If Tehran cannot export crude, it loses a major source of hard currency.
That affects government spending.
It affects imports.
It affects the value of the national currency.
And eventually it affects ordinary citizens.