Enlarge<\/a><\/p>\nDUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump has decided against charging ships for using the Strait of Hormuz, saying Tuesday that Gulf countries would instead invest in the United States. Another wave of U.S. strikes on Iran, and Iranian attacks on shipping and American allies,\u00a0left an interim peace deal in tatters.<\/p>\n
That agreement\u00a0was 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\u00a0engulfed the region, threatened the global economy and brought warnings to commercial airlines.<\/p>\n
The U.S. carried out another wave of strikes ahead of its planned reimposition of a blockade on Iran\u2019s ports, a U.S. official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military operation.<\/p>\n
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 U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, it effectively shut the passage by attacking and threatening ships \u2014 a tactic that proved its greatest strategic advantage. That sent the price of oil, fertilizer and other goods soaring.<\/p>\n
Iran has more recently attacked ships moving through the strait on a route overseen by the U.S. military that is outside Tehran\u2019s control, setting off tit-for-tat strikes. The U.S. has\u00a0threatened to reopen the strait by force in necessary.<\/p>\n
Strikes and counterstrikes resume across the Mideast<\/p>\n
The U.S. military\u2019s Central Command said it struck several areas in Iran, targeting \u201ccoastal defense systems, missile and drone sites and maritime capabilities.\u201d Iran acknowledged the strikes but provided no immediate casualty or damage assessments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese 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,\u201d the U.S. military said.<\/p>\n
Iran responded\u00a0with attacks targeting Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and three tankers that traveled through the strait.<\/p>\n
Two of the targeted ships, which were associated with the United Arab Emirates, were set ablaze for a time. The International Maritime Organization said the attack on the tankers Mombasa and Al Bahiyah killed two mariners and wounded 14 others. The UAE threatened to retaliate.<\/p>\n
Dutch shipping firm Stolt Tankers said 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.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said the Mombasa and Al Bahiyah \u201cignored repeated warnings.\u201d Iran has targeted ships that use a route through the strait that passes near Oman outside its territorial waters.<\/p>\n
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. The attacks again raised the possibility that Gulf Arab states were retaliating against Iran without discussing it in public.<\/p>\n
The interim peace deal is in peril<\/p>\n
Exchanges of fire in recent days had already cast doubt on the\u00a0interim peace deal\u00a0\u2014 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\u2019s\u00a0disputed nuclear program\u00a0and other issues.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s 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 \u2014 recently offered by\u00a0U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u00a0on a trip to the region.<\/p>\n
Under\u00a0the interim deal, Iran agreed that passage through the strait would remain free of charge for 60 days \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard,\u00a0briefly 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\u2019s announcement that he had changed course.<\/p>\n
Mediators are trying to prevent a return to full-scale war<\/p>\n
Regional mediators are still trying to get the United States and Iran back to the negotiating table, according to two regional officials.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Last month,\u00a0Lebanon and Israel announced\u00a0a \u201cframework agreement\u201d outlining the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in exchange for the\u00a0disarmament of Hezbollah. Implementation has stalled.<\/p>\n
Before the fighting around the strait intensified, Israel\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trump will not charge fees in the Strait of Hormuz as attacks intensify Audio By Carbonatix Enlarge DUBAI,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-206783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-persian-gulf","tag-persian-gulf"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116920151548769769","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Carbonatix](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/tts-pre-loader.gif\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/17840451296155924mL9UyGvnn.jpg\")