The President backs away from plans to charge fees in the Strait of Hormuz

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a reversal of plans to charge a 20% toll on cargo going through the Strait of Hormuz, saying that Middle Eastern countries will instead make investment and trade deals with the U.S.

"Based on 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," Trump said on social media.

The president said the investments "will be MASSIVE," though it's unclear if these would be new commitments relative to what Trump announced after a visit last year to the Middle East.

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The focus of the conflict now is the strait, through which a fifth of all traded crude oil and natural gas passed in peacetime. Iran effectively shut the passage during the war by attacking and threatening ships — a tactic that proved its greatest strategic advantage. It sent the price of oil, fertilizer and other goods soaring at a time when world leaders were already struggling to address rising costs.

The interim deal was supposed to reopen the waterway, but Iran has attacked ships moving through the strait on a route overseen by the U.S. military that is outside Tehran's control.

The U.S. has now threatened to reopen the strait by force — but experts say that will require a much bigger armada if not tens of thousands of American ground troops.

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"These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz," the U.S. military said.

Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain, Jordan and three tankers that traveled through the strait. Kuwait's military said it was responding to an aerial attack without providing further details.

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The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose to a one-month high of over $87 in trading Tuesday, still well below the nearly $120 reached at the height of the war but threatening to raise costs everywhere.

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