President Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced at a press conference this week in Manama, Bahrain, that the United States will not allow Iran to charge a fee at the Strait of Hormuz.
Rubio said: “You can call it a fee. You can call it a toll, call it whatever you want. If you are charging money to use the straits, we won’t support it. We won’t. We won’t tolerate it. We won’t allow it.”
Rubio was responding to Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei saying earlier this week that Iran was, as The New York Times reported, “not seeking to levy transit tolls; however, fees will be charged in exchange for the services that are provided.”
According to President Trump’s statements, Rubio’s toll intolerance would not prevent the U.S. from potentially levying tolls on traffic in the Strait, as after signing the MOU Trump threatened to impose tolls in the Strait of Hormuz if the deal with Iran wasn’t completed within 60 days.
[NOTE: Responding to suggestions that Oman and Iran would eventually charge fees or tolls, expressly prohibited by the MOU during the 60-day negotiation period, Trump wrote: “There will be NO TOLLS after the 60 day period has expired, unless they are imposed by and for the United States of America.”]
"You can call it a fee. You can call it a toll, call it whatever you want. If you are charging money to use the straits, we won't support it. We won't. We won't tolerate it. We won't allow it."
— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 25, 2026
Secretary of State Marco Rubio firmly shoots down the idea of any tolls or fees being… pic.twitter.com/M6RwP1j4vJ
At the press conference on Wednesday, Rubio emphasized that a toll is “not even workable.”
He said: “Let’s say we went crazy for a minute, and lost our minds completely and decided to agree to have a tolling or fee mechanism, how would that work? It’s not doable. Because what’s the consequence for not doing it? Well let’s say a ship says ‘I’m not going to pay the fee,’ it’s not like a toll on the road, you don’t get a ticket in the mail. They get shot at. You sink one ship, no other ship is going to move. That kind of system is not only unwise it can’t happen. It’s not even workable. So you might as well abandon the fantasy now.”
