Trump Blindsides Gulf Allies and His Own Aides With Hormuz Toll Scheme, Only to Abandon It a Day Later

As the Trump administration continues its helpless flailing in trying to find a politically acceptable exit from its disastrous conflict with Iran, the president briefly announced—and reversed the next day—a plan to charge a 20% toll on shipping coming through the Strait of Hormuz.

CNN has the story:

President Donald Trump shocked Gulf allies and many of his own aides with his plan to impose a toll on the Strait of Hormuz, touching off an international scramble to convince him to reverse course on his demand, several sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

The abrupt announcement on Monday came despite months of warnings from Trump’s own advisers not to pursue the idea, for fear it would undermine the US’ own war aims — as well as validate Iran’s purported plans to charge fees in the strait, which the administration repeatedly characterized as illegal. … Inside the White House on Monday, aides rushed to flesh out the logistics for creating such an unprecedented tolling system, including determining who would pay the fees and how they would be collected. Many officials and outside analysts initially assumed shippers would foot the bill, but the effort was further complicated by another Trump declaration later on Monday that US allies in the Gulf would be paying instead.

Those same Gulf allies’ leaders, meanwhile, were working frantically to get Trump on the phone in time to talk him out of the idea altogether.

By Tuesday morning, the flurry of appeals from nations—including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar—had succeeded. Instead of the US collecting tolls, Trump announced that the countries had pledged to pour new, undefined sums into US investments.

Such is American foreign policy now.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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