Plot Twist! President Trump Declares Blockade of Iran Is Back on and That the US Controls Hormuz

President Trump announced Monday that the U.S. is reinstating the blockade of Iranian ports and, in an unexpected move, would take over management of the Strait of Hormuz on a "fee for service" basis. His announcement came by way of Truth Social.

The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran. We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran’s ships or customers from entering or leaving. All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait. The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as “THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,” but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, 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 process and formation will begin immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP

More detail was provided in President Trump's interview on Fox News,

Trump: We're just gonna keep the Strait and we'll probably run it. We'll become the guardian of the Strait. And we should be reimbursed for that. Now we're gonna guard it and get paid for it. A lot of money pic.twitter.com/hNnL2yYjrc

— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) July 13, 2026

We hit them very hard last night. Every time they send a drone, we hit them very hard. But we had a deal. What nobody knows, we had a deal, it was a done deal and they broke it. They always break it. We’ve had ten deals with these people. So we’re just going to hit them very hard. 

And we're going to keep the Strait. Hey we'll probably run it we'll become the guardian of the Strait. Maybe we'll call it the guardian Angel of the Strait and should be reimbursed for that. When we do that, we’re going to be reimbursed because the other nations are very wealthy, they’re on our side. And we can't be expected to do that for nothing like we did for many years. You know, we guarded the Strait for 50 years, more, and we never got paid for it. They made all the money and the United States was just, you know, not. They wouldn’t. It’s amazing. We guarded it for nothing. And now we’re guarding it and we’re going to get paid for guarding it; a lot of money. But we just want to be reimbursed for doing all of this, for putting our people in danger.

I don't know if this is real or just another negotiating tactic provided by Acme Corporation to make the U.S. look ridiculous at home and abroad.

Maritime Chokepoints

Map shows the world’s key maritime choke points. Source: https://t.co/Vft6JGV7fx pic.twitter.com/J9jSujjaUM

— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) April 2, 2021

First, Hormuz is one of the world's vital maritime chokepoints. When President Trump arrived in office, Joe Biden had conceded control of those chokepoints. Iran was openly allied with Russia and China, and, as we've seen, could disrupt maritime traffic through Hormuz. A Chinese company effectively managed the Panama Canal. Venezuela was under communist control, and most of South America was headed in that direction. The Cape of Good Hope was in the hands of one of China's BRICS partners (no accident, since no one thinks South Africa, the "S" in BRICS, has a functioning economy). The Houthis controlled Bab el-Mandeb. Argentina, under Javier Milei's predecessor, had also joined BRICS.

With this act, President Trump has reversed all of that strategic loss. China is out of Panama, and the Caribbean and South America are not in danger of becoming Chinese provinces. The Houthis remained quiet during the ongoing war with Iran, showing that they had received a solid thumping in the 2025 conflict. Controlling Hormuz would place the U.S. in the position of effectively controlling Asia's oil supply.

Tradition

The first war fought by the United States after the ratification of the Constitution, if you exclude chastizing Indians on the frontier, was in service of freedom of navigation. Germany's use of unrestricted submarine warfare to blockade Britain directly led to American involvement in World War I. We are a maritime nation and are directly or indirectly dependent on the free flow of raw materials and finished products for our economic existence. Opening the Strait of Hormuz to commerce and keeping it open is within our historical tradition.

NATO Involvement

I see the demand for fees to keep the Strait of Hormuz open as an indirect ploy to turn the management of the Strait over to NATO and the Gulf States. If we are crapping ourselves over the impact of sending a few dozen Patriot missiles to Ukraine, we certainly aren't in the position to take on the task of policing the Strait. This mission is tailor-made for a NATO flotilla rich in minesweepers and anti-aircraft frigates. It is also a mission that the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia could undertake to solidify their role as a counterweight to Iran in the future and build their military competence. This would also get rid of the issue of fees.

Marco Rubio (June 23): "No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway"

Donald Trump (Jul 13): "The U.S.A. will be [...] known as 'THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,' but as such [...] will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped"

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) July 13, 2026

Personally, I'm a "that was then, this is now" kinda guy, and I don't care what an account based in the Islamic Kingdom of Great Britain has to say, but to think this will not be a domestic political issue is to misread the state of domestic political affairs.

But...

While President Trump is mostly correct in his view that you can make a deal with anyone, where I think his worldview, and that of some of his advisors, fails is that the currency in most of the world is not dollars. The currency is power and image. Without power, your head ends up on a pike on some Tehran street corner. With power, the money comes easily. Without the image of an undefeated and unbeatable Final Boss, you don't have power. 

In my personal view, the campaign against Iran has been a dog's breakfast of signals by the American side, all of which have served to internally strengthen an Iranian regime that was on the ropes and barely clinging to life in January. If President Trump is serious about carrying through on this plan to own the Strait of Hormuz, I think it will be a strategic victory that will resonate for a generation. If it is another tactic to get more useless negotiations with totally unreliable partners, don't be shocked when our Gulf allies start abandoning us and falling in line behind Iran.

Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and bold policies, America’s economy is back on track.

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