Washington, July 14 (dpa/GNA) – US President, Donald Trump, on Tuesday backed down from his proposal to apply a 20% toll on traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, in favour of new trade and investment deals with Gulf states.
In a post on social media just one day after he revived his call for a 20% levy on ships passing the crucial waterway, Trump appeared to again abandon the idea after “highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership.” “I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States,” he wrote. “Those Investments will be MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future.”
The US president said the Strait of Hormuz is “open to ALL Ship traffic except for Iran, and that is because of their lying, violent, malicious leadership, which is taking them down the path of TOTAL DESTRUCTION.” “We will therefore have a FULL Blockade, but only on Ships coming to and from Iranian ports, or carrying anything have to do with Iranian cargo,” he added.
The comments came amid renewed hostilities between Tehran and Washington, with the United States conducting a third consecutive night of strikes on Iran as the ceasefire between the two sides crumbles.
Iranian media meanwhile reported fresh explosions along the country’s southern coast. The attacks extended across several cities in daylight hours, in what appeared to mark a further escalation of the conflict.
State broadcaster IRIB reported five explosions in the western part of the port city of Bandar Abbas. Shortly afterwards, Iran’s state news agency IRNA said the city of Bushehr had come under attack, with four districts targeted, citing the deputy governor of Bushehr province.
The United Arab Emirates said overnight that two of its oil tankers were hit by Iranian cruise missiles in the southern shipping lane of the Strait of Hormuz, in Omani territorial waters, killing one Indian crew member and wounding eight others, four seriously.
Another vessel came under attack off the coast of Oman, with an explosion triggering a fire aboard the chemical and oil tanker Stolt Magnesium, the Netherlands-based owner said on Tuesday.
GNA