In Iran, President Donald Trump must not forget that the U.S. Navy was created with one thing in mind: securing the freedom of navigation for Americans. And that is exactly what it needs to do in the Strait of Hormuz to once again carry out its historic mission.
Free navigation is in our blood. In 1785, Muslim Barbary pirates seized American vessels, holding their crews for ransom. Stripped of British naval protection after independence, our young republic faced two choices: pay off pirates or build the means to fight back. For nearly a decade, we paid, and the pirates grew bolder. Then, in 1793, after a truce that opened the Atlantic to their raids, the pirates seized 11 more American ships and enslaved roughly 120 sailors.
This time, we fought back, and, at President George Washington’s urging, the Navy was established with a mere six frigates.
Now 232 years later, Iran is threatening to charge tolls from merchant vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, laying mines in the waterway, using selective passage to reward its friends as leverage against the United States and Israel, and has still projected that it is Iran who controls passage of the strait. After marathon peace talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, collapsed last weekend, Trump responded with a full naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. His goals are good: an end to piracy and full reopening of the strait, but on U.S. terms, not on Iran’s.
Iran’s effort to turn the strait into a tollbooth is a nonstarter.
Iran is the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, and its so-called “axis of resistance,” which includes Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. Despite an economy wrecked by sanctions and its own mismanagement, the Iranian regime continues to direct significant funding toward terrorism, ballistic missiles, and its nuclear weapons program. Money is fungible. Allowing Iran to collect tolls from global shipping channels money toward the very evils the U.S. and Israel have spent the past month fighting. Oct. 7, 2023, should be a dark reminder of what the regime and its proxies are capable of.
Consider the numbers. Before the war, more than 100 ships transited the strait daily, over 30,000 per year. At Iran’s reported toll of $2 million per vessel, that works out to over $200 million a day, more than $73 billion annually. In other words, Iran’s toll piracy scheme could generate revenue exceeding half its annual government budget.
Amid the hand-wringing over this conflict, one crucial fact goes unacknowledged: The U.S. still holds overwhelming military superiority. The U.S. made a serious mistake in negotiations by even entertaining the possibility of Iran profiting from the strait. Thankfully, we have since corrected course.
The Strait of Hormuz is both incredibly narrow and vitally important. Enforcing the freedom of navigation is not optional. No free society can accept a terrorist regime seizing control over so critical an economic chokepoint.
Nor is the problem solely economic. What Iran is doing flouts centuries of international law and norms that guarantee Innocent Passage and Strait Passage.
“Innocent Passage” is the right of vessels of all nations to traverse through territorial seas, even through a different nation’s exclusive economic zone. “Strait Passage” is even more permissive, guaranteeing safe passage through a strait, including through a nation’s territorial sea, which extends up to 12 nautical miles from a coastline.
The U.S. is the world’s leading enforcer of these laws and norms of the sea. When Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi declared the entire Gulf of Sidra to be Libyan territorial waters, the U.S. responded by deploying a carrier strike group straight into the gulf and shot down Libyan fighter jets attempting to enforce Gaddafi’s claims.
We even have a formalized term for such operations, “Freedom of Navigation Operations,” and we back up our declarations with action.
China has been watching closely. Beijing has seen its vaunted defense systems fail in Iran and witnessed the superiority of the U.S. military to pull off rescues that Hollywood could scarcely imagine. But it’s also now seen how taking over a strait can cripple the world’s economy. It must be taking a closer look at the Taiwan Strait and just how critical that might be. How the U.S. approaches Hormuz will signal to China what it can expect if it tries something similar with Taiwan.
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Trump’s blockade cuts off Tehran’s ability to profit from the very waterway it was holding hostage. The president put it plainly: It is “all or none.” No ship will receive preferential treatment. The Navy will seek and interdict every vessel in international waters that has paid a toll to Iran, and no one who pays that illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas.
The U.S. did not tolerate piracy or pay ransoms in 1794, and we should not do so now. The Strait of Hormuz must be opened when the U.S. declares it so. The U.S. blockade will not be dictated by Iran.
Ali Holcomb is a foreign policy fellow at Advancing American Freedom Foundation.
Joel Griffith is a senior fellow at the Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise at Advancing American Freedom Foundation.