DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. military says it has reinstated a blockade of Iranian ports following Iranian attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
This is a breaking news update; check back for details.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday walked back a proposal to charge ships for passage through the Strait of Hormuz, saying instead that Gulf nations would invest in the United States. The shift came as fresh U.S. strikes on Iran, along with Iranian attacks on shipping and American allies, appeared to unravel a fragile interim peace arrangement.
The temporary agreement had been intended to reopen one of the world’s most important energy corridors and create space for negotiations toward a lasting end to the conflict. Instead, renewed fighting has swept back across the region, rattling the global economy and prompting warnings for commercial airlines.
Before the planned return of the blockade on Iranian ports, the U.S. launched another round of strikes, a U.S. official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the military operation. Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, told Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB in an interview aired Tuesday that Washington was trying to stop Tehran from exercising what he called “effective sovereignty” over the Strait of Hormuz.
Before the war, the Strait of Hormuz was open to all vessels without tolls and carried about one-fifth of the world’s traded crude oil and natural gas. After the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, the passage was effectively shut as ships came under attack or threat — a move that became Iran’s strongest strategic leverage. The disruption sent prices higher for oil, fertilizer and other goods.
More recently, Iran has targeted ships traveling through the strait along a U.S.-overseen route outside Tehran’s control, triggering a cycle of retaliatory strikes. Washington has warned it could reopen the waterway by force, though analysts say such an effort would likely require a far larger naval presence and potentially tens of thousands of ground troops.
Trump says he’s replacing the fees with Gulf investments
On Monday, Trump said the United States would restore the blockade on Iranian ports and impose fees on ships equal to 20% of their cargo value to help cover the cost of securing the strait. By Tuesday, he had retreated from the fee plan, even as the blockade was expected to resume within hours.
Trump said he was called by “kings and emirs” and other leaders who suggested an alternate arrangement.
“They said we’d love to do it a different way. We’d love to invest in the United States with billions and billions of dollars,” Trump told reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office.
Trump said he preferred that arrangement to charging tolls “because I don’t think anybody should be able to charge a fee for the strait.”
It was unclear if the investment deals would be new commitments relative to what Trump announced after a visit last year to the Middle East.
Strikes and counterstrikes resume across the Mideast
The U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck several areas in Iran, targeting “coastal defense systems, missile and drone sites and maritime capabilities.” Iran acknowledged the strikes but provided no immediate casualty or damage assessments.
“These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” the U.S. military said.
Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and three tankers that traveled through the strait.
The International Maritime Organization said the attack killed two mariners and wounded 14 others on two of the tankers, Mombasa and Al Bahiyah, which were associated with the United Arab Emirates. The UAE threatened to retaliate.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said the Mombasa and Al Bahiyah “ignored repeated warnings.”
Qatar on Tuesday condemned what it described as repeated Iranian attacks on Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait, calling them an “egregious violation” of the three countries’ sovereignty and the international rules-based order.
In a statement on X, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry renewed its call for “dialogue, diplomacy and de-escalation.”
Hours after the U.S. said it ended its campaign of strikes, the Iranian city of Bushehr on the Persian Gulf was hit in at least four locations, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. Explosions in the southwestern city of Ahvaz and the southern port city of Bandar Abbas also were reported by Iranian state media on Tuesday evening.
The attacks again raised the possibility that Gulf Arab states were retaliating against Iran without discussing it in public.
The interim peace deal is in peril
Exchanges of fire in recent days had already cast doubt on the interim peace deal – now almost halfway through the 60-day period in which negotiators were supposed to agree to a final accord, which also was meant to address Iran’s disputed nuclear program and other issues.
Washington lifted a blockade it imposed in mid-April as part of the deal. The U.S. military said it will resume it at midnight Wednesday in Dubai.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, said in an interview aired on Tuesday by IRIB, Iran’s state broadcaster, that the United States was seeking to prevent Tehran from exercising what he described as “effective sovereignty” over the Strait of Hormuz.
“The passage of vessels is not important to the U.S. The U.S. is not dependent on the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump has announced it many times,” Gharibabadi said. It was not immediately clear when the interview was recorded.
Trump’s plan to charge fees would have been a change to longstanding U.S. policy and a departure from U.S. promises that the strait would remain open to all without tolls – recently offered by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on a trip to the region.
Under the interim deal, Iran agreed that passage through the strait would remain free of charge for 60 days – but the agreement left open what would happen after. Iran asserts it has the right to manage traffic through the strait and potentially charge fees. The U.S. has disputed that.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, briefly topped $87 early Tuesday, still well below the nearly $120 reached at the height of the war. The price dipped to $78 in the aftermath of Trump’s announcement that he had changed course.
Mediators are trying to prevent a return to full-scale war
Regional mediators are still trying to get the United States and Iran back to the negotiating table, according to two regional officials.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the delicate diplomatic process, said Pakistan-led mediation was working around the clock to reactivate the ceasefire.
Meanwhile, Lebanese and Israeli delegations met Tuesday in Rome and will continue U.S.-mediated negotiations Wednesday. Shortly after the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah joined the conflict in support of its ally, Iran, and began attacking Israel. Israel responded with a ground invasion of Lebanon.
Last month, Lebanon and Israel announced a “framework agreement” outlining the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in exchange for the disarmament of Hezbollah. Implementation has stalled.
Before the fighting around the strait intensified, Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon repeatedly threatened to derail the interim deal. A truce now exists in Lebanon, but it remains unclear whether it will hold if the U.S. and Iran return to full-scale war.
Toropin and Binkley reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.
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