Trump Just Reimposed the Naval Blockade on Iran & Ukraine Targets Russia at Sea

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**Mike Baker** (0:38)
It's Tuesday, the 14th of July. Welcome to The Presidents Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, and your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, President Trump reinstates the US. Naval Blockade on Iran as tensions in the Strait of Hormuz continue to build. I'll have the latest on the escalating confrontation. Later in the show, the Middle East conflict is spreading. Iran-backed Houthi rebels, remember them? Well, they've launched ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia after an apparent strike targeting an Iranian aircraft in Yemen. Plus, Ukraine continues its offensive against Russia's shadow fleet, claiming it struck more than 100 vessels in just eight days. And in today's Back of the Brief, we have the latest from Venezuela, where the death toll from the earthquakes has now climbed above 4,400.
But first, today's PDB Spotlight.
The US. Navy's blockade of Iran is back on. President Trump announced Monday that American forces will once again prevent ships from entering or leaving Iranian ports, restoring the blockade that was lifted under last month's ceasefire agreement with Tehran. That was quite the ceasefire agreement, wasn't it? That worked out well. That decision comes after Iran resumed attacks on commercial shipping in recent days, prompting the administration to conclude, well, that the ceasefire is for all practical purposes dead, if in fact it was ever alive. On Truth Social, Trump declared that the Strait is open, and he's spelled open in all caps, so you know it's open, and will remain open again in all caps, with or without Iran.
In other words, commercial traffic from the rest of the world is being told by the US that it's safe to travel through the Strait. Iranian vessels and ships conducting business with the regime are being told, don't even try it. Enforcing that mission now falls to US Central Command. CENTCOM confirmed Monday that American forces will target vessels traveling to or from Iranian ports while continuing to escort or otherwise support commercial traffic that isn't violating the blockade. According to an unnamed US defense official who spoke with Axios, that effort is already underway. Despite Tehran's repeated claims that it has closed the Strait, commercial vessels, albeit a smaller number compared to pre-conflict traffic, they are transiting the southern shipping lane under US military coordination, while several others have crossed independently without incident. Trump also announced that the US is now serving as what he called the quote, guardian of the Hormuz Strait. And then he floated an idea that's already generating plenty of debate.
The president says the US should be reimbursed for protecting one of the world's most important shipping lanes. Specifically, he proposed a 20% fee, quote, on all cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. I'm not making this up. The US president has proposed a toll system, not unlike what the Iranian regime has been trying to impose. Now, that raises a few obvious questions. That is a statement of the obvious. For weeks, senior administration officials have argued that no country has the legal right to charge tolls for passage through the strait because it's an international waterway, freedom of navigation, that's the standard. And the White House has spent months berating and bombing Iran for attempting to control the strait and for attempting to impose a toll system on vessels transiting the strait. Now, not to put too fine a point on it, but Trump is suggesting the US should charge fees for transiting the strait. The optic, to put it mildly, is, what's the word I'm looking for? Odd.
Now, the White House appears to be positioning the toll concept as something different from what the Iranian regime has been attempting. Not a toll, but a security fee. The argument seems to be, if the US is using its Navy to keep the strait open for the global economy, then the countries benefiting from that protection ought to help foot the bill. Whether America's allies agree, well, that's another matter entirely. In fact, Axios reports that a senior Gulf official says Washington hasn't even discussed the proposal with regional partners. And then there are the logistical or administrative issues around enacting a toll, sorry, security fee. The President proposed a 20% fee, which begs the question 20% of what exactly? The cargo's value, the shipping cost, insurance, something else. Who pays it? Shipowners, importers, foreign governments? And maybe the biggest question of all, how exactly would you collect those fees?