Trump backs away from plan to charge fees in Strait of Hormuz as attacks resume

US President Donald Trump has backtracked on plans to charge ships for using the Strait of Hormuz, saying Gulf countries would instead invest in the United States.

Meanwhile, another wave of US strikes on Iran, and Iranian attacks on shipping and American allies, left an interim peace deal in tatters.

This agreement was supposed to reopen a waterway that is key to world energy supplies and give negotiators time to hammer out a permanent end to the war.

Instead, fighting has once again engulfed the region, threatened the global economy and brought warnings to commercial airlines.

The US carried out another wave of strikes ahead of its planned reimposition of a blockade on Iran’s ports, an American official told The Associated Press.

A fifth of all traded crude oil and natural gas passed through the Strait of Hormuz before the war, when it was open to all without tolls.

When the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, it effectively shut the passage by attacking and threatening ships — a tactic that proved its greatest strategic advantage.

This sent the price of oil, fertiliser and other goods soaring.

Iran has more recently attacked ships moving through the strait on a route overseen by the US military that is outside Tehran’s control, setting off tit-for-tat strikes.

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The US has threatened to reopen the strait by force — but experts say that would require a much bigger armada if not tens of thousands of ground troops.

Mr Trump said on Monday that the US would reimpose a blockade on Iranian ports and begin charging ships fees equivalent to 20% of their cargo to defray the costs of securing the strait.

He backed off on the fees a day later, while the blockade is set to come back into force in the coming hours.

Mr 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,” Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

Mr 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 Mr Trump announced after a visit to the Middle East last year.

The US military’s central command said it struck several areas in Iran, targeting “coastal defence 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 US military said.

Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and three tankers that travelled through the strait.

Two of the targeted ships were associated with the United Arab Emirates and were set ablaze for a time.

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The International Maritime Organisation said the attack on the tankers Mombasa and Al Bahiyah killed two mariners and wounded 14 others.

The UAE threatened to retaliate.

Dutch shipping firm Stolt Tankers said that one of its ships came under attack.

The attack on the Stolt Magnesium off Oman sparked a fire in the engine room, but the company said all the mariners were safe.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said the Mombasa and Al Bahiyah “ignored repeated warnings”.

Iran has targeted ships that use a route through the strait that passes near Oman outside of its territorial waters.

Hours after the US 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.

The attacks again raised the possibility that Gulf Arab states were retaliating against Iran without discussing it in public.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency warned airlines against operating in the airspace of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as over the Gulf of Oman.

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 was also meant to address Iran’s disputed nuclear programme and other issues.

Washington lifted a blockade it imposed in mid-April as part of the deal.

The US military said it will resume it at midnight on Wednesday in Dubai.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, briefly topped 87 US dollars early on Tuesday, still well below the nearly 120 dollars reached at the height of the war. The price dipped to 78 dollars in the aftermath of Mr Trump’s announcement that he had changed course.

Regional mediators are still trying to get the US and Iran back to the negotiating table, according to two regional officials.