Araghchi agreed that whoever provides safe passage for commercial vessels through the Strait should be paid for the service.
Then came the catch.
„Iran has always been the GUARDIAN of the Strait and will remain so FOREVER,“ he wrote on X.
And as for Trump‘s proposed price?
„20% is of course too much. We will be fair.“
President Donald Trump is “very serious” about his plan to impose a 20% toll on cargo transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, a White House official told Semafor, asserting that it’s a plan he’s wanted to move forward with for months.
The president has long flirted with the idea of charging a toll, wondering back in April “why shouldn’t” his administration do so and threatening to impose fees in June if a deal with Iran was not completed within a 60-day period.
„Whether the going rate is $200 or $20m, there is no legal basis for charging vessels to exercise their right of transit passage through an international strait,“ Lloyd‘s List editor Richard Meade wrote Monday. „Whether such demands originate in Tehran or Washington is largely beside the point. The danger lies in normalising the idea that access to one of the world‘s most important maritime arteries can be subject to politically conditioned payments.“
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Tuesday criticised US President Donald Trump‘s proposal to impose a 20 per cent charge on commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, mocking Washington as a „pirate“ state.
His remarks came after Trump announced that the US would reinstate what he called the „Iranian blockade“ and begin charging vessels for securing one of the world‘s busiest shipping lanes.
The strait was open before the US and Israel joined forces to wage war on Iran, only to have that nation slam it shut. Some vessels got through during the ceasefire, with Iran charging $3 million for a fully loaded supertanker to transit the strait.
Trump’s threatened toll would jack that cost up to $69 million.
President Donald Trump on Monday said the U.S. will impose fees in the Strait of Hormuz “at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped,” after declaring America the “guardian” of the major oil shipping route.
President Trump announced on Monday that the U.S. is reinstating the naval blockade on Iran and will prevent any ships from leaving or entering Iranian ports. The blockade will go into effect on July 14 at 4pm ET.
Trump also claimed the U.S. would be „reimbursed“ at a rate of 20% for securing safe passage for cargo ships, though the details and seriousness of the initiative were not immediately clear.
Verhandlungen zu Chatkontrolle 2.0 in der Zielgeraden
Um diesen langfristigen Ansatz ringt die EU seit geraumer Zeit. Neben einer dauerhaften Regelung für das Scannen unverschlüsselter Inhalte sollte der Vorschlag der EU-Kommission auch dafür sorgen, dass Material vor seiner Verschlüsselung durchleuchtet und gegebenenfalls an Behörden gemeldet wird – eine Technik, die als Client-Side-Scanning bekannt ist.
Over the past few years, I came to the conclusion that Great Britain was world’s chief arsonist of peace and suggested that if, the City of London, with its supporting structures in British government, banking, intelligence, secret diplomacy, along with a vast network of think tanks, media organizations, NGOs, charitable organizations and gambling casinos around the world could somehow be quarantined, probably 95% of all the world’s wars and other problems would vanish overnight.
In den letzten Jahren bin ich zu dem Schluss gekommen, dass Großbritannien der weltweit größte Friedensstörer ist. Wenn es gelänge, die Londoner City mit ihren Stützpfeilern in der britischen Regierung, im Bankwesen, im Geheimdienst, in der geheimen Diplomatie sowie mit einem riesigen Netzwerk aus Thinktanks, Medienorganisationen, NGOs, Wohltätigkeitsorganisationen und Spielkasinos auf der ganzen Welt irgendwie unter Quarantäne zu stellen, wahrscheinlich 95 % aller Kriege und anderen Probleme der Welt über Nacht verschwinden würden.
Israeli Channel 13 reported that the country‘s political leadership has issued new limits on military operations in southern Lebanon, allowing action within the „yellow line“ against direct threats while prohibiting operations in areas such as Beirut and Tyre.
The channel said the move reflects growing pressure from the Trump administration.
Der Journalist Fabian Goldmann hat in seinem Buch „Staatsräsonfunk: Deutsche Medien und der Genozid in Gaza“ über das Versagen der sogenannten deutschen „Leitmedien“ in der Berichterstattung zum Gaza-Krieg geschrieben. Im hier abgedruckten Kapitel „Druck von allen Seiten“ (im Buch Kapitel 8.6.) berichtet Goldmann über die Angst in den Redaktionen und den Druck auf Journalisten – durch ihre Vorgesetzen, Social-Media-Kampagnen sowie israelische Regierungsvertreter und Organisationen. Ein Blick hinter die Kulissen, der zeigt, wie stark die Pressefreiheit beim Thema Israel und Gaza in Deutschland aktiv eingeschränkt wird und wie sehr auch die Journalisten selbst darunter leiden. Ein Buchausschnitt von Fabian Goldmann.
(April 24, 2026)
Vice president of finance Víctor Vial confirmed that while certain vessels have recently paid more than $1m to secure a crossing, such sums reflect temporary spikes in demand rather than structural pricing shifts. Before the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East, average auction prices ran between $135,000 and $140,000. That figure rose some 180% to around $385,000 between March and April as demand surged.
The canal makes three to five slots available each day through its auction mechanism, aimed at vessels that have not booked in advance.
(April 21, 2026)
The exchange was conducted „respectfully and professionally,“ he said, adding that the U.S. delegation did not issue any threats or deadlines as has been reported in some U.S. media.
„The elimination of the energy embargo against the country was a top priority for our delegation,“ García del Toro said. „This act of economic coercion is an unjustified punishment of the entire Cuban population.“
He was later pushed on who had ordered him to look into getting Doyle a position, and who had ordered him not to tell the foreign secretary (which at the time was David Lammy).
Robbins said: “I don‘t know what the origin of the suggestion was, and I don‘t know who exactly was behind it or how serious it was.
“It was serious enough for the No 10 private office to ring up the head of the diplomatic service and ask for a forward look of available head of mission jobs, and that‘s the point at which I thought that I needed to lay down some markers.”
Testifying to MPs at parliament’s foreign affairs select committee on Tuesday, Olly Robbins said he had several conversations with No 10 about finding a role for Matthew Doyle, who was later suspended as a Labour peer after it emerged he had campaigned for a friend charged with possessing indecent images of children.
Robbins said he had been asked not to mention the idea to David Lammy, who was foreign secretary at the time.
Robbins described the conversations as part of more general pressure from people at the top of the government to place senior political figures in senior diplomatic posts.
Asked who in No 10 had applied pressure, he said it was mainly the prime minister’s private office, which is staffed by civil servants. But he added: “I think that the private office would only have been [putting on] this pressure themselves if they were under pressure.”
The former top civil servant in Britain’s foreign office, who was fired by Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week, said on Tuesday that Mr. Starmer’s office had a “dismissive attitude” about the security vetting of Peter Mandelson, an associate of Jeffrey Epstein who became ambassador to the United States despite concerns raised during the vetting process.
The former civil servant, Olly Robbins, testified in Parliament that he and other officials in charge of deciding whether to grant Mr. Mandelson a high-level security clearance were working in “an atmosphere of pressure” to ensure that nothing got in the way of Mr. Mandelson’s appointment.
Iranian sources indicated that Pezeshkian called potential agreement with the United States as “not out of reach,” suggesting that Tehran still sees diplomatic space despite ongoing disputes.
The core of Iran’s position remains unchanged, while it is open to negotiations, it insists that talks must be conducted without pressure, coercion, or what it views as unilateral demands from Washington. Iranian officials have repeatedly framed US policy toward Tehran as coercive, particularly in relation to long-standing disagreements over Iran’s nuclear program and regional influence.
Der Republikaner attackierte bei einem Kongress in Miami erneut zunächst die NATO-Verbündeten Frankreich und Großbritannien – und kam dann auf Deutschland zu sprechen: „Der deutsche Bundeskanzler – das sind alles meine Freunde – Friedrich. Der deutsche Bundeskanzler, er sagte: ‚Das ist nicht unser Krieg‘.“ Trump schob nach, dass dann der Ukraine-Krieg auch nicht der der USA sei.
Bereits am Vortag hatte Trump Deutschland kritisiert. Er habe es als „unangemessen“ empfunden, dass von deutscher Seite geäußert worden sei: „Das ist nicht unser Krieg.“
(May 22, 2023)
Boris Nikolic, a top adviser to Gates at the time, pointed Antonova to Epstein, then a well-connected financier, who agreed to meet her at his Manhattan townhouse in 2013, sources told the Journal.
(February 18, 2026)
The Israeli government installed security equipment and controlled access to a Manhattan apartment building managed by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a set of emails recently released by the Department of Justice. The equipment was installed starting in early 2016 at 301 E. 66th Street—the residence where former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak frequently stayed for stretches at a time.
The security operation at “Ehud’s apartment” was in place for at least two years, emails from the DOJ disclosure show, with officials from the Israeli permanent mission to the United Nations corresponding regularly with Epstein’s staff regarding security. The apartment was technically owned by a company connected to Epstein’s brother, Mark Epstein, but was effectively controlled by Jeffrey Epstein. Units in the building were frequently loaned out to Epstein’s contacts and used to house underage models.
Feb 20, 2026 The Young Turks
Billionaire Les Wexner didn‘t seem to remember much about his ties with Jeffrey Epstein during a hearing. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.
(July 15, 2020)
Though Israeli intelligence found obvious use for the steady stream of sensitive and classified information, their biggest prize was yet to come – top secret government laboratories in the United States. Eitan tasked Maxwell with selling PROMIS to US labs in the Los Alamos complex, including Sandia National Laboratory, which was and is at the core of the US nuclear weapons system. Notably, the eventual sale of PROMIS to these laboratories by Maxwell occurred during the same period in 1984 when Eitan tasked one of Israel’s top experts in nuclear targeting with supervising Jonathan Pollard’s espionage of U.S. nuclear secrets on Israel’s behalf.
In order to plot how he would accomplish such a feat, Maxwell would meet with none other than Henry Kissinger, who told him that – in order to sell PROMIS to these sensitive laboratories – he needed to enlist the services of then-Senator for Texas John Tower, who was the head of the Senates’ Armed Services Committee at the time.
(…)
Not long after his failure to secure the nomination as Pentagon chief, Tower died in a suspicious plane crash soon after the equally suspicious death of Robert Maxwell.
(…)
In early August 1984, FBI headquarters and other higher-ups in the Ed Meese-led Department of Justice, which itself was complicit in the whole sordid PROMIS affair, ordered the New Mexico office to halt its investigation into Information on Demand, Maxwell and PROMIS. The cover-up, oddly enough, continues today, with the FBI still refusing to release documents pertaining to Robert Maxwell and his role in the PROMIS scandal.