“All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait,” he said, but added that “as a matter of FAIRNESS, [the U.S.] 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 to this very volatile section of the World.”

Trump said the “process and formation will begin immediately.”

“We guarded the strait for 50 years and never got paid for it,” Trump said on Fox. “We want to be reimbursed for this, for putting our people in danger.”

Isn’t this dumbass protection racket essentially privateering?

Just in time for him to bluster all day and back down for Taco Tuesday.

he thinks this is just some hardball negotiation tactic, but it comes off as just another one of his old-man dementia tantrums that he embarrassingly has to back down from, again, making Iran look like the reasonable ones.

meanwhile, back at home, he, his family, and his cronies are playing the stock market like one of his pump-and-dump schemes, making billions.

Honestly, at this point, let's fucking see Trump attack a vessel from a NATO nation. Let's do it. I want to see the article 7, I want to see NATO come in and fix the USA.

Honestly, at this point, it's just funny to me. Like some morbid comedy playing through the news every now and then. Like this shit is a literal joke. I bet you, someone at some point said that this would happen as a joke.

This is taking the toll Iran planned on charging and turns it into a mob style protection racket that demands 1/5 of your cargo as extortion.

I guess i don't need to say it, but this is gonna backfire on us...

Jesus christ! This man is such an absolute moron. He can't even go more than 2 hours before doing something utterly idiotic again and then lying his ass off when it doesn't work the way his dementia addled brain thought it would.

"Trump announces a US toll 15x higher than Iran's for passage in SoH"

He's really working hard to make Iran more popular than the US, isn't he?

Capitalism in action.

Generate a crisis and extort money for solution.

He really thinks that the point is the money.

🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

He saw others do it and he got ideas…

1-D chess

Another winner from the "No u" school of foreign policy.

Im getting “you can’t fire me, I quit” sort of energy.

I wish he was not our president.

It won't matter insurance companies aren't writing policies for boats sailing through the straight anyway. Shits about to get even more real for gulf states and asia. China will not be happy about this.

Where are the hypocritical leaders and orgs that said iran can't force a toll on the straight?

Presumably it’s cheaper to go around Africa, so that would just be a blockade with extra steps.