US carries out latest wave of strikes on Iran as Trump plans 20% Hormuz transit fee

[CAIRO/DUBAI/WASHINGTON] A US air base in Jordan was targeted by Iranian ballistic missiles on Tuesday (Jul 14), Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said, while calling on Jordanians to dismantle American bases in the kingdom.

“You know very well that not only do we not have any enmity with your country, but we also love you, the noble people, who understand the pain and oppression of the Palestinian people more than any other nation,” the IRGC said in a statement carried by Fars News.

Jordan’s armed forces said on Tuesday they intercepted and shot down four missiles that entered Jordanian airspace from Iranian territory, according to state news agency.

US forces completed their latest wave of strikes on Iran that the US Central Command began earlier in the day at the direction of US President Donald Trump. The five hours of US strikes were the third consecutive night of attacks against Iran as Trump reinstated a blockade of Iranian shipping and proposed charging a 20 per cent fee to guard the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian media reported strikes on a number of the cities and said four people had been wounded and rescue operations were under way.

Trump earlier told the Hugh Hewitt Show that Iran would be hit “very hard tonight, and we’re going to hit them hard tomorrow. And there’s not a damn thing they can do about it.”

The latest hostilities come after Iran said at the weekend it was closing the Strait of Hormuz, casting further doubt on an interim deal to halt the war and driving oil prices higher.

“The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran. We are reinstating THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE,” Trump had said earlier on Monday on Truth Social.

“The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT’, but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped.”

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Iran’s top joint military command said the US had no role in determining the future of the waterway and would not be allowed to intervene. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqhchi wrote on X that Teheran was the guardian of the strait and would remain so “forever”, adding in response to Trump’s comments that: “20% is of course too much. We will be fair.”

US$240 million a day

Before the conflict began in February, around a fifth of the world’s oil and gas traffic passed through Hormuz daily, delivering more than 15 million barrels of fuel to global markets worth at least US$1.2 billion. If the US were to impose a 20 per cent fee, it could generate around US$240 million a day.

The UN’s shipping agency pushed back against Trump’s proposal, saying it opposes any fees for straits used in international navigation and stressing that there is no legal basis for introducing mandatory tolls on strait transits.

Oil prices rose nearly 3 per cent on Tuesday to their highest in four weeks, as the US reimposed its naval blockade of Iran and the attacks in the Strait of Hormuz heightened uncertainty about energy flows.

UAE says Iranian missiles hit two ships in Hormuz

The UAE Ministry of Defence said on Monday that Iranian cruise missiles struck two Emirati oil tankers while transiting the southern lane of the strait in Omani territorial waters.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency (UKMTO) said a tanker had been hit by an unknown projectile while travelling 40 nautical miles north-east of Oman’s Qalhat.

Reuters could not immediately verify whether the UKMTO report referred to the same incident as the one reported by the UAE’s Ministry of Defence.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said two “offending” supertankers had been hit and disabled in the strait after ignoring repeated warnings and turning off navigation systems, Iranian media reported.

The IRGC’s statement did not name the vessels or say whether they were the same tankers cited by the UAE ministry. But it accused the US of “inciting vessels to use an illegal route” and warned that cooperation with the “aggressor enemy” would result in damage, delays in reopening the waterway and a global energy crisis.

The US Navy-led Joint Maritime Information Center said the blockade would take effect at 2000 GMT on Tuesday (4 am on Wednesday in Singapore) and apply to all vessel traffic regardless of flag, covering the entire Iranian coastline, including ports and oil terminals.

It said the measure would not impede neutral transit passage through the strait to or from non-Iranian destinations, and that humanitarian shipments would be permitted subject to inspection.

The US and Israel attacked Iran on Feb 28 and Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host US bases. US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks on Lebanon during the war have killed thousands and displaced millions. REUTERS