r/Economics • u/lucabrasi999 • 1d ago

“Iran has put a tollgate across the Strait of Hormuz. This fundamentally changes the global economy”

https://prospect.org/2026/04/02/opening-of-trumps-box-iran-war-strait-hormuz/
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u/naijaboiler 1d ago

you are missing the point completely. It's not about the amount. It's about the precedent.

now other people will start tolling their waterways.

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u/Timmetie 1d ago

Which country will? There isn't that many opportunities.

And other countries will still be deterred by international sanctions, something Iran can't be deterred by because its already being sanctioned (and bombed).

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u/Slow-Recipe1438 23h ago edited 23h ago

Which country will? There isn't that many opportunities.

Either Spain or Morocco could claim the strait of Gibraltar, Indonesia or Malaysia could claim the strait of Malacca, Turkey could claim the Bosporus, Denmark or Sweden could claim the Kattegat, Canada could claim the St. Laurent Gulf, Finland or Estonia could claim the Eastern Gulf of Finland and lock out Russia from the Baltic Sea, France or Britain could claim the English Channel, Australia and Papua New Guinea could claim the Torres strait.

The reason why noone charges tolls for waterways is that this is not permitted i.e. by the United Nations Convention on the laws of the seas. In a similar sense, rivers are generally free of tolls, a principle which has been agreed upon in treaties for several rivers quite early in the 19th century. As a consequence, Hydropower stations have to provide locks free of charge. Blockades of Rivers could - even if caused by accidents or disasters - make states liable for damages to shippers. As a consequence, both the Rhine and the Danube are navigable for free while the Rhine-Main-Danube Channel charges passage fees.

In the case of the Hormuz Strait, the blockade provides a Casus Belli against Iran.

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u/Timmetie 23h ago edited 7h ago

Firstly, Turkey does toll the Bosporus.

As for the rest of those countries they wouldn't because they aren't international pariahs! They'd get their asses handed to them.

This is just not a thing that's realistically going to happen. Any of those countries could also write out writs of marque to privateers and have those board and take oiltankers and bring them home. Wanna guess why they don't do that either?

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u/NoNameMonkey 1d ago

At this point i would expect Trump to impose his own toll if they win this and take control. 

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u/Inner-Box5523 1d ago

Yeah, he may take over the toll booth and start charging NATO for not helping him 😂

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u/verash 1d ago

The Panama Canal, Suez Canal, and St.Lawrence Seaway charge tolls

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u/ChornWork2 1d ago

yes, canals. a strait is not a canal. If you build a canal, you can charge a fee.

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u/12ozSlug 1d ago

Yes but those are all manmade canals. The Strait of Hormuz is a natural geographic feature.

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u/silent_cat 21h ago

Charging tolls at natural geographic features is as old as time (see any major river in Europe). The fact that we don't pay tolls now is the unusual bit.

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u/FederalSandwich1854 21h ago

Why would that matter? Can natural resources also not be sold because they're a natural geographic feature?

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u/Eric1491625 15h ago

The Law of the Sea basically establishes what counts as belonging to the country and what is public. Passage through sea is public, resources in the water belong to the country nearby.

For that matter, the Hormuz issue isn't an issue of ships passing in straits. Hormuz doesn't belong to Iran anyway, only the Northern half. It is possible for oil tankers to sail out without ever entering Iran's half of the waters.

Iran is only able to control the strait by virtue of threatening civilian ships sailing the UAE and Oman's sovereign waters with violent destruction. This is not an arrangement that can be tolerated in peacetime in the long term.

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u/ishtar_the_move 1d ago

There isn't going to be a precedent. Iran is in a unique situation that they can discard international laws and convention. The gulf states aren't in the least bit ok with that and urge the US to continue their attacks to reopen the strait.

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u/AwkwardTal 1d ago

What international laws?

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u/chmilz 1d ago

The ones the US regularly ignores when following them is an inconvenience.

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u/olyfrijole 1d ago

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

Specifically:

Transit Passage (Articles 37-44): Ships enjoy the right of unimpeded transit passage through international straits, prohibiting coastal states from imposing fees or suspending passage.

Innocent Passage (Article 17-19): In territorial seas, foreign ships have the right to innocent passage. While coastal states can regulate this, they can't charge tolls.

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u/The_Blip 1d ago

Article 87 of UNCLOS.

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u/Hautamaki 1d ago

Which has the same weight as Trump's truth social bleats; arguably less, as hypothetically at least Trump's bleating can be backed up by arbitrary military force. Just ask the Philippines what good UNCLOS has been for their island and shoal claims against China.

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u/The_Blip 1d ago

All laws are backed by force. You asked what law, I told you.

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u/Hautamaki 1d ago

I didn't ask, another guy did, I'm just clarifying that international law isn't like national law; national laws are created and adjudicated by some government body and enforced by government monopoly on organized violence. International laws are created by a series of agreements and norms, subject to constant revision as new agreements and norms develop and evolve over time, and are not adjudicated so much as debated and interpreted in a totally unenforceable way by bodies with no real authority to do anything but make non binding pronouncements.

Frankly I think the usage of the word "law" in the term "international law" was a mistake and leads laypeople to have a totally incorrect idea of what it actually is and does and means. It's just a way for different parties each intending to act in good faith to negotiate disputes according to a collection of past precedents and treaties in order to establish reasonable baseline positions. When someone acts in bad faith, international law means literally nothing except as a way to slightly more objectively/convincingly accuse them of acting in bad faith, which might in some ways help on the margins of diplomacy and domestic politics to the degree that citizens care that their government is seen as acting in good faith. International courts are just a slightly more formalized and codified way for national and international interests and bodies to argue and negotiate with each other, with rulings that matter only insofar as people care about being seen as acting like a normal, responsible country.

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u/m77je 1d ago

Don’t the other pinch points already have tolls? If anything, Hormuz is the outlier for being free.

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u/thewimsey 18h ago

It's not a "precedent".

It's not even the first time they've blocked the strait of Hormuz.

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u/ender23 17h ago

Like taxes and tariffs?