Iran is looking at setting up a permanent toll system in the Strait of Hormuz, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing officials familiar with the discussions inside Tehran's government. If implemented, the move would convert what had been ad-hoc transit fees imposed during the conflict into a formal, structural revenue mechanism — a major shift in how Iran intends to leverage its geographic position over global energy flows going forward.
President Trump pushed back forcefully Thursday. “We want it open. We want it free,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We don't want them charging tolls.” Trump also asserted that the United States “has total control” of the Strait of Hormuz and that this control has been “fully effective” — a characterization at odds with Kpler tanker-tracking data showing strait traffic at roughly 5% of pre-conflict baseline.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Iran against imposing tolls. Rubio said any Iranian attempt to formalize a tolling system on Hormuz transit would be incompatible with freedom-of-navigation principles and would invite further U.S. response. Iran has at points during the conflict charged tolls of over $1 million per ship to transit the waterway, according to multiple shipping-industry sources.
France dismissed the idea of NATO playing a role in any international mission to enable freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. French foreign ministry spokesperson Pascal Confavreux told reporters Thursday in a weekly briefing: “Our position is clear and constant. It is that the North Atlantic Treaty applies to the North Atlantic.” The French dismissal is significant because it forecloses one of the multilateral options Washington had been weighing for a sustained naval presence in the strait.
The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed in week 12 of the conflict. Pre-conflict, around 3,000 vessels used the strait monthly; current traffic stands at roughly 5% of that baseline per Kpler. Around 1,550 commercial vessels remain stranded in or around the strait with approximately 22,500 mariners trapped, per the most recent Joint Chiefs update. The IEA's executive director Fatih Birol warned Thursday the oil market will reach a “red zone” this summer if Hormuz does not reopen.
The toll dispute is now one of the two central issues that, together with the uranium standoff, are clouding the outlook for a U.S.-Iran agreement. Iran's revised peace proposal earlier this month had offered gradual reopening of Hormuz in exchange for the U.S. lifting its blockade of Iranian ports. The toll question complicates the offer because even “reopening” with Iranian tolls would represent a structural change in the operating conditions of the waterway.
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