Three weeks ago, Marco Rubio stood in Bahrain and told the entire world there would be zero tolls on the Strait of Hormuz, that the president had made it clear, that it "cannot be a part of this." On Monday, Trump announced tolls on the Strait of Hormuz. This is the foreign policy of a man who has never been told no by anyone he respects.
What Trump Actually Announced
According to AP News, Trump said Monday that the United States is "reinstating" a blockade on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and will charge other ships for safe passage through the waterway. The U.S. military said the blockade resumes Tuesday at 4 p.m. EDT. So mark your calendars, shipping industry. Bring your wallet.
This comes after the U.S. launched several waves of heavy strikes on Iran into Monday morning, hitting around 140 targets, in retaliation for an Iranian attack on a container ship in the strait. Iran responded by targeting countries across the Middle East. The interim peace deal reached last month, which had the U.S. lifting a blockade in exchange for the strait being fully reopened, is now, to put it diplomatically, on fire.
The U.S. had previously said the strait should remain open to all ships without any tolls, which was its prewar position and, more relevantly, the position Rubio stated as firm U.S. policy about twenty minutes ago in historical terms.
Rubio Said This Exact Thing Would Never Happen
Let's be precise here, because precision is what makes this so spectacular. On June 25, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Bahrain meeting with Gulf leaders. AP News reports he told reporters: "That's an international waterway. There isn't a nation on Earth that supports having to pay money to go through the Straits."
He kept going. "Zero support among the Gulf countries for any sort of toll or fees or anything that charges for the use of international waters," Rubio said. "The president's made it clear that's not going to happen. It's not going to be a part of this. It cannot be a part of this."
It cannot be a part of this. That was eighteen days ago. It is now very much a part of this. Someone should check on Rubio. Not out of sympathy, just morbid curiosity about what a man looks like when he has fully left his body.
The International Community Has Thoughts
The International Maritime Organization, the UN agency that oversees global shipping safety, weighed in quickly. AP News reports the IMO said it was waiting to learn more about Trump's proposal but that its position on tolls has not moved an inch: "IMO stands firmly against charging fees for passage through straits used for international navigation. There is no legal basis through which to introduce mandatory tolls simply to transit through a strait."
So to recap: no legal basis, no support from Gulf countries, directly contradicts what the U.S. Secretary of State said less than three weeks ago, and violates the terms of the peace deal the U.S. itself signed. Truly a policy built on a rock-solid foundation of vibes and improvisation.
Meanwhile, Sea Drones Are Now a Thing
If the toll announcement wasn't enough news for a Monday, AP News reports that U.S. Central Command confirmed it used drone ships to strike an Iranian ship maintenance facility and submarine at Bandar Abbas Naval Base. Three Corsair unmanned surface vessels hit the port on Sunday, which CENTCOM called the first time American forces have used sea drones in combat operations. There is video.
The timing of this particular announcement carries a certain dark comedy of its own. The Trump administration had previously claimed it completely destroyed Iran's navy. The drone strike was conducted against what appears to be a surviving Iranian naval facility. These two things do not fit together, and nobody in the administration seems bothered by that.
Lindsey Graham Is Dead and That Changes Things Too
In the middle of all this, AP News reports that Senator Lindsey Graham died Saturday at 71 after suffering a tear in his aorta. Graham was one of Trump's closest allies in Congress and, by the AP's own description, an advocate for U.S. military aggression in Iran. He was, in the most literal sense, one of the loudest drumbeaters for this conflict.
Trump said Monday he has recommended that Graham's sister be named as his temporary replacement in the U.S. Senate. This is how American governance works in 2026: a senator who spent years pushing for war with Iran dies during that war, and his Senate seat gets handed off like a family heirloom before the funeral arrangements are even public.
A Judge Also Called Out Trump's IRS Lawsuit Today Because Why Not
Buried under the geopolitical chaos, AP News reports that a federal judge ruled Monday that Trump's lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns was filed for an "improper purpose." U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams referred attorneys in the case for disciplinary action and issued a withering assessment of the whole thing.
The lawsuit had settled in May with an agreement that created a since-abandoned $1.776 billion fund meant to compensate Trump allies, plus immunity from tax audits for those same allies. The judge wrote that the suit was "an attempt to use the Court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the President and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law." Just a normal Monday dispatch from the American legal system.
The Dingo Take
The Strait of Hormuz situation is a case study in what happens when there is no coherent foreign policy, just a series of strongly worded statements that contradict each other at two-week intervals. Rubio flew to the Middle East, held press conferences, told the Gulf states and the global press corps that tolls are categorically off the table, and then his boss announced tolls. This is not a communications problem. This is a government that does not have positions, it has moods.
The peace deal that was supposed to hold, that the U.S. agreed to, that required the strait be open and free, is now functionally dead. Shipping lanes that carry something close to 20 percent of the world's oil are being blockaded and tolled by a president who made the opposite promise three weeks ago. The IMO says there's no legal basis for this. The Gulf countries Rubio just visited have zero support for it. None of that seems to be slowing anything down.
What we have here is an administration conducting military operations at scale, trying out new weapons systems in live combat, killing an interim peace deal it negotiated, contradicting its own Secretary of State in real time, and handing out Senate seats like party favors, all before lunch on a Monday. The tragedy is that none of this is surprising anymore. The outrage is that it damn well should be.
