US president Donald Trump is beginning to show signs of frustration over a lack of tangible progress with respect to reopening the strait of Hormuz ꟷ a key condition of the ceasefire that the US agreed with Iran earlier this week.
The agreement announced on 7 April ostensibly called for an end to strikes by the US and Israel on Iran for two weeks, in return for Iran agreeing to provide safe passage for commercial vessels through the key waterway through co-ordination with the Iranian armed forces.
But less than three days in, not only have transits through the strait not increased, they have actually fallen from the already low levels of the past few weeks.
Less than eight vessels transited the strait on average in the two days since the ceasefire was agreed, according to Kpler data, down from more than 12 in the first week of April. This compares with more than 100 per day before the start of the war.
"Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonourable some would say, of allowing oil to go through the strait of Hormuz. That is not the agreement we have!" Trump said on his Truth Social platform overnight.
The slowdown has come, at least in part, due to infractions that Iran said its counterparts have made since the ceasefire was agreed. Tehran, specifically, objected to a massive bombing campaign that Israel carried out across Lebanon on 8 April, as it considered Lebanon to be part of the ceasefire agreement.
Pakistan's prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said as much in his announcement of the ceasefire. But Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since insisted that the agreement did not include a ceasefire in Lebanon. The US has said the same.
Iran's Fars news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), cited an informed source shortly after Israel's bombing campaign on 8 April that the strait would "remain closed" until a full ceasefire was established in Lebanon.
Kpler data showed just five vessels transited the strait on 8 April, down from 13 the day before.
Iran also appeared to carry out strikes against several of its Arab Gulf neighbours in retaliation for the Israeli campaign, and strikes on oil infrastructure on the two islands of Lavan and Sirri, with both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait reporting significant damage to key energy installations, after the ceasefire agreement.
In an earlier post on Truth Social, Trump hit out at "reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz strait". Iran had "better not be, and if they are, they better stop now!" he said.
Trump was referring to a system that Iran has been employing in recent weeks whereby vessels have paid Tehran a fee to transit the waterway safely ꟷ a system first revealed by Iranian parliament member Alaeddin Boroujerdi in mid-March.
Hamid Hosseini, the spokesman for Iran's oil, gas and petrochemical products exporters' union, told Argus this week that the system continues, with the fee charged directly linked to the volume of oil on board. "Shipowners are being asked to pay $1 per barrel, and that can be done in the local currency, rials, or cryptocurrency, but only after the vessel has received a permit from the IRGC," Hosseini said.
Iranian lawmakers are also preparing to bring a bill formalising Iran's role as the guardian and guarantor of the waterway to the parliament for a vote.
But others are pushing back against the idea of Iran taking control of the strait, or setting up a toll there.
"Open the strait unconditionally," said Sultan al-Jaber, chief executive of Abu Dhabi's state-owned Adnoc on 8 April. "Iran has made clear… that passage is subject to permission, conditions and political leverage. That is not freedom of navigation. That is coercion."
The European Commission, also on 8 April, said under international law, freedom of navigation must be insured, meaning "no payment or toll whatsoever".
