US president Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that the United States was attacking Iran’s capabilities related to the Strait of Hormuz, amid renewed military action between the two countries.
The US military said on Monday it was launching fresh strikes against Iran but Trump told reporters at the Oval Office that he had not decided that a negotiated settlement could not be reached with Tehran.
The United Arab Emirates’s ministry of defence also said late on Monday that two national tankers were targeted by two Iranian cruise missiles in the southern lane of the Strait of Hormuz in Omani territorial waters, killing one Indian crew member and wounding eight others, including four seriously.
The US president said he wants Gulf nations to reimburse the United States for helping protect the strait.
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Trump also said that it could be that there are Iranian drones in Cuba.
“If they do have that, and they might very well have that, we’ll take care of it,” he said.
“We’re not going to have a problem. We’re not going to allow that to happen so it could be that they are storing some. We’re looking into it now.
Earlier on Monday, Trump said the US will reinstate its naval blockade of Iran and charge a 20 per cent fee on cargo passing through the strait.
Trump said the US would be its “guardian”.
“The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Monday. “We are reinstating ... THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran’s ships or customers from entering or leaving. All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait.”
“The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,’ but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security.”
Trump added this “process and formation” would start immediately. However, he did not specify how exactly the US would implement its plan for the strait, which Washington and Tehran claim to control.
Iran was supposed to gradually reopen the waterway after it signed an interim deal with the US last month to extend an April ceasefire.
But after the US encouraged ships to transit along Oman’s coast, Iranian forces began targeting vessels it accused of using an “unauthorised” route through the waterway.
A 20 per cent US levy would add about $16 in cost to every barrel of crude oil passing through Hormuz, based on current prices, or about $32 million per supertanker using the strait.
Trump’s comments follow almost a week of tit-for-tat military exchanges that have risked the return to full-scale war and the collapse of the fragile ceasefire agreement between Washington and Tehran.
“We’re taking over the strait,” Trump told Fox News on Monday. “We’re just going to hit them very hard, and we’re going to keep the strait, and we’ll probably run it.”
Iran has said several times that it would charge ships additional fees for insurance or a toll to transit the strait in the future, citing the need to cover security and environmental costs.
[ Why has the Iran-US ceasefire memorandum frayed?Opens in new window ]
However, as part of the memorandum of understanding it signed with the US in June, Trump had lifted the blockade on Iranian ports and Tehran agreed that ships would be able to pass through the strait without being charged for 60 days.
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Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi wrote on X that Tehran was the guardian of the strait and would remain so “forever”, adding in response to Trump’s comments that: “20% is of course too much. We will be fair.”
The US had carried out its fifth wave of strikes on Iran in a week on Sunday, hitting what it said were targets including air-defence systems, missile and drone sites and other Iranian military infrastructure.
It said the strikes came after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired at a commercial vessel and said US forces had intercepted an Iranian cruise missile and drone.
In response, the IRGC said its forces had carried out multiple rounds of retaliatory operations against US military bases and other targets around the region.
Shipping traffic through the strait on Monday had fallen to a trickle.
Shipping analysts said it appeared that a small number of ships had sailed through the strait without their GPS signal on, but the numbers remained very low. – Reuters/Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026
