Photo: Alamy
President Donald Trump touted a new approach on Tuesday to policing the Strait of Hormuz, pivoting from a proposed 20 percent fee on cargo to a whopping investment plan from the Gulf States.
“Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States,” President Trump said in a statement posted to social media.
He continued, “Those Investments will be MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future. As everyone is aware, we have the largest Dollar Investment into the United States, of any Country in History, but these new Investments will make that Number even larger, and we will see Factories, Plants, and Equipment pour into the United States at Historic levels, which will create additional millions of High Paying AMERICAN Jobs!”
This newest statement comes just one day after he proposed charging a 20 percent fee on cargo in the Strait of Hormuz to compensate for the heavy price of U.S. military protection amid Iranian threats.
As reported by RSBN, the president announced on Monday that the U.S. Navy would reinstate a total blockade on Iranian vessels, while considering a reimbursement rate of 20 percent, he said, “for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World.”
The blockade on Iranian vessels remains in place, but President Trump said in his Tuesday statement that the Strait of Hormuz was open to everyone else.
“…the Strait of Hormuz is open to ALL Ship traffic except for Iran — and that is because of their lying, violent, malicious leadership, which is taking them down the path of TOTAL DESTRUCTION,” the president declared. “We will therefore have a FULL Blockade, but only on Ships coming to and from Iranian ports, or carrying anything have to do with Iranian cargo.”