Washington: Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned that the United States cannot abide Iran holding sway over the Strait of Hormuz, remarks coming after President Donald Trump called off the newest round of talks with Tehran over the weekend, Bloomberg reported.
Rubio, in a Fox News interview aired on Monday, shot down a reported Iranian bid to resume Hormuz traffic post-talks collapse, vowing no tolerance for Tehran dictating ship movements or extracting fees.
“If what they mean by opening the straits is, ‘yes, the straits are opened, as long as you coordinate with Iran, get our permission, or we will blow you up and you pay us,’ — that’s not opening the straits,” Rubio said.
“They cannot normalize — nor can we tolerate them trying to normalize — a system in which the Iranians decide who gets to use an international waterway and how much you have to pay them to use it.”
The statement follows an Axios report detailing Iran’s proposal to unlock the Strait of Hormuz, end hostilities, and delay deeper nuclear talks. US and Israeli leaders, including Trump, have pinned the war’s origins on Iran’s nuclear pursuits, with strikes hitting Tehran by late in February.
Hormuz Shutdown Sparks Energy Surge
Normally ferrying one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas, the strait has been off-limits since initial Iranian threats, now reinforced by a US naval blockade targeting Iran-affiliated vessels. A fragile ceasefire has endured since early April, yet the blockage keeps energy markets in turmoil. Pakistan-brokered discussions, including a fruitless Islamabad session, have stalled, with Trump pulling out special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner from a weekend Pakistan visit.
War Weighs On Trump, Strains Allies
Skyrocketing US gas prices have turned the conflict into a domestic headache for Trump, while Europe resists entanglement amid its own fuel woes.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz charged on Monday that US efforts are being “humiliated” by Iran’s “very skilfully” handled diplomacy.
UN Warns Of Trade Peril
UN Security Council diplomats zeroed in on Hormuz on Monday, as French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot decried potential Iranian tolls as a risky model. “Access to the seas would be a privilege reserved for the few,” he said, “Straits would become militarized corridors. Global trade would be taken hostage, and entire regions would become isolated. The world would be asphyxiated, subject to lawlessness and the law of the strongest.”
