Trump retreat over Hormuz tolls suggests he is struggling to end Iran war

Donald Trump’s latest Iran War plea took 24 hours, suggesting the president is looking for unorthodox ways to get out of a difficult situation.

In a social media post on Monday morning announcing the resumption of the American naval blockade of Iranian ships, he said all ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, including U.S. allies, must pay a fee. 20% fee Reimbursing the United States “for all expenses necessary to carry out the work of providing safety and security to this highly unstable part of the world.”

The next day, completely abandoned this offerInstead, he proposed that America would make “trade and investment agreements” with its Gulf allies, implying that in return the United States would offer them safe passage through the Bosphorus.

The sudden turn was the latest turning point in the conflict, which has now raged for more than four months and shows no signs of ending despite a month-old “memorandum of understanding” securing a temporary ceasefire and providing a framework for negotiations.

Trump may be reluctant to escalate the war, given its continued unpopularity, the possibility of rising energy prices, and the risks of American forces and their allies once again coming under Iranian attack. However, he may also find distasteful the prospect of ending the conflict without reaching a deal that he can argue is better than the one Barack Obama’s administration negotiated in 2015.

“I think the most likely ending is an ending without an end,” said Rosemary Kelanid, Middle East program director at Defense Priorities. “This has become a war of attrition, and wars of attrition tend to go on for a long, long time.”

USA-Iran memorandum of understanding (MOU) – and the hopes that come with it for an end to the war – came to an end on Tuesday on Truth Social at 10:16 ET (16:16 BST) when Trump announced the resumption of the US blockade of Iranian shipping, amid new US military strikes on targets across Iran.

The Iranians responded by increasing attacks on US allies and commercial shipping in the region, once again bringing traffic in the Strait of Hormuz to a near halt.

After nearly a month of on-and-off negotiations between the two countries, punctuated by sporadic hostilities that test the definition of a “ceasefire,” Trump and the Americans appear to be facing the same challenges that have been present throughout much of the Iran War.

While militarily the Americans achieved their objectives, measured by the destruction of Iran’s ships, aircraft, and targets and the reduction of its defensive capabilities, politically the conflict was far from resolved.

Even though Iran is militarily weakened, it can still deny access to the Strait of Hormuz. And unless the Americans were willing to dramatically increase their military operations in the region, there was little they could do to stop them.

Watch: Trump explains why he dropped 20 percent of Strait of Hormuz toll

Trump’s new spin on the 20% fee, presumably a way to make the military commitment more acceptable to the American people, was not entirely new. He had suggested such an arrangement many times throughout the war.

But just last month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned Iran’s plan to “charge a fee” for shipping via Hormuz.

“No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on international waterways,” he said. “This is existing international law. It is that way in international waterways around the world, and we expect it to be that way here.”

Trump’s Hormuz U-turn is the latest evidence of a president who appears to have no clear path forward. memorandum of understandingThe agreement, which both the Americans and Iranians claimed as a victory for their side, was deliberately vague, leaving much to later negotiations.

The document envisions Iran playing a role in monitoring shipping in Hormuz. The following statements were made in the statement: “The Islamic Republic of Iran will use its best efforts to make arrangements for the free and safe passage of commercial ships.”

This is a role that Iran intends to claim. The MoU also included pledging billions of dollars of investment to Iran and lifting international sanctions.

The Americans may have believed that these sweeteners, along with warnings of the consequences of noncompliance, would be enough to deter Iran from attempting to use its geographic advantages to gain stronger control over Hormuz. This calculation seems wrong, at least for now.

“The memorandum of understanding is completely dead,” Kelanid said. “All of the things he predicted have now been undone.”

Now Trump and the Iranians find themselves in a familiar predicament. The latter are once again facing American military incursions across their territory, demonstrating their inability to defend their territorial sovereignty. With the re-imposed blockade, oil revenues, which were the lifeline of the Iranian regime, were again cut off.

Meanwhile, Trump once again faces a choice between escalating tensions, which entails domestic economic and political costs, or settling for some kind of solution that would leave the hostile Iranian regime in power.

“We’re back to where we were at the beginning, where the question was: Who has more patience?” said Elliot Abrams, senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Is it the Iranians who cannot export oil, or the United States and other countries that use Persian Gulf oil?”

After months of concern that the Iran war was triggering a new wave of popularity-crushing inflation, Trump received some good news on Tuesday: Consumer prices were falling.

A resumption of hostilities, or even an escalation of the conflict, would inevitably push oil prices back to their previous highs, jeopardizing this positive trend and once again putting Republicans in a weak position heading into November’s midterm congressional elections.

On Monday, following Trump’s Truth Social post, the price of a barrel of oil rose nearly 10%; this was the largest one-day increase in six years.

Trump’s blockade helped bring the Iranians to the negotiating table for the first time, setting the table for a framework and memoranda of understanding for a more lasting peace.

According to Kelanid, the president’s influence over Iran may now decrease.

“He’s already tried things he can do easily, things he can do convincingly,” he said. “It can attack military targets, regime targets. It has done this before and it did not cause Iran to surrender.”

Trump’s latest proposed target is Kazma Mountain, a heavily fortified nuclear research site south of Tehran. But there is conflicting evidence about the value of the area or whether US airstrikes would seriously damage tunnels deep within the granite rocks.

If Trump’s latest moves eventually result in a new ceasefire and face-to-face talks, underlying, intractable disagreements such as Hormuz, the disposition of Iran’s nuclear program, and Iran’s influence in the Middle East will remain.

“I think there is room here for negotiation on the Strait of Hormuz agreement,” Abrams said. “But it’s not a return to the Memorandum of Understanding.”

As the war approaches its fifth month, Trump again noted Monday that other American conflicts, including the Vietnam War, have dragged on for years.

But this particular quagmire disrupted and eventually ended Lyndon Baines Johnson’s presidency and damaged the United States’ global standing for at least a decade. This is a fate Trump certainly hopes to avoid.

His supporters are also tired of Trump repeating the “endless wars” in the Middle East that he condemned in previous presidential campaigns.

But with the memorandum of understanding in tatters, the ceasefire expired, and the possibility of further conflict looming on the horizon, the end of the Iran War looks no closer to resolution than it did in the weeks after it began.

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