Beau of The Fifth Column

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned Iran's tolling plans and said that such a development would be quote, dangerous for the world.

The European Commission has expressed its displeasure with any tolls, with a spokesperson saying, quote, International law provides for the freedom of navigation, which means what?

It means no payment or toll whatsoever.

The Strait of Hormuz, like any other maritime lane, is a public good for all humanity, which means navigation must be free.

Freedom of navigation must be restored.

They stopped short of telling companies and ships not to pay what amounts to protection money.

Apparently, Iran wouldn't cut Trump in on the shakedown.

Or, I mean joint venture.

Because on Thursday, April 9th, Trump posted to social media, quote,

There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait.

They better not be, and if they are, they better stop now.

President Donald J. Trump It's a beautiful thing on Wednesday, too they better stop now by Thursday.

We've talked about how Trump's war gave proof of concept to Iran's ability to tie their national security to international security via the straight and the economic influence.

A toll system formalizes this and gets the world accustomed to Iran having physical control.

That makes it really hard for Trump to pretend to have won a strategic victory.

Beyond that, if Iran is collecting money via the Strait, there's economic exchanges between businesses in various countries.

It chips away at Iran's economic isolation, and then the money itself can be used to fund repairs, reconstruction, and to assist the new proxies that will likely be looking to Tehran for help.

We'll have to wait to see any potential agreement that comes out of this, but it's going to take a lot of unforeseen events for the United States to walk out of this conflict in a better position than it started.

It certainly appears at this juncture that Trump started an unnecessary elective war to demonstrate how effective he is on the world stage and wound up drastically damaging the U.S.

position in the world.