Iran is sharpening its case for imposing charges on Strait of Hormuz shipping, arguing commercial vessels should help pay for environmental damage in the Gulf, as Tehran and Washington vie for control of the strategic waterway.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmael Baghaei said on Aug. 13 that environmental protection should form a key part of any future arrangement governing the strait, pointing to a recent oil spill along the shores of Iran’s Qeshm Island.
Baghaei said preliminary evidence suggested that pollution documented at three coastal sites and on parts of the surrounding sea surface originated from a foreign bulk carrier.
“Who bears responsibility for compensating these damages?” Baghaei said, asking whether responsibility should fall on energy-consuming countries, shipping insurers, or countries involved in military operations in the region.
“Every party that benefits from commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz carries both a legal and a moral obligation to remediate the environmental harm.”
The remarks broaden Iran’s justification for Hormuz shipping fees, adding compensation for environmental damage to its existing argument that vessels should pay for maritime and environmental services.
The Trump administration has rejected both Iranian fees and Tehran’s claim to control Hormuz, insisting the waterway remain open and toll-free.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the United States has “total control” over Hormuz while comparing the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports to a “wall of steel.”
Iran effectively shut the waterway after the U.S.–Israeli strikes on Iran that began on Feb. 28, sharply curtailing traffic through a route that previously handled roughly one-fifth of global seaborne energy shipments.
A June memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran called for a return to freedom of navigation, but the arrangement later unraveled amid renewed Iranian restrictions and attacks on shipping vessels, along with retaliatory U.S. military strikes.
Iran’s Bid to Control Hormuz
Iranian military officials on Thursday doubled down on their claim that Tehran—not Washington—controls the strait.
“The Strait of Hormuz remains, as in the past, under the full management and control of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesman for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said in a statement carried by Iranian state-run PressTV.
He said no commercial vessel or oil tanker could safely transit the waterway without authorization and supervision from Iran’s armed forces, while warning that Tehran is prepared to escalate.
Zolfaqari said that Iran’s military was closely monitoring U.S. and Israeli activities in the region and would respond to any threat “more forcefully and severely than before.”
Hossein Taeb, head of Iran’s Basij paramilitary unit, made a similar claim on Thursday, being cited by PressTV as saying the strait remained under the “management and control” of Tehran, while accusing Washington of stoking hostilities in Hormuz to drive a wedge between Iran and its Gulf neighbors.
Trump, meanwhile, has rejected any Iranian assertions of control over the strait.
“We have total control over the Hormuz Strait right now. They don’t have control. We have total control. We own it,” Trump told reporters on Aug. 11.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said U.S. military operations and cooperation with Gulf allies had lifted the seven-day average of oil moving through Hormuz to nearly 9 million barrels per day.
Wright said commercial ship-tracking services significantly undercount traffic because some vessels are moving covertly through the waterway. Including expanded pipeline and other export routes, he said roughly 15 million barrels per day were leaving the Gulf region.
James Thorne, chief market strategist at Wellington-Altus, said that the figures support the administration’s contention that Tehran has failed to regain control of the chokepoint.
“Iran has not ‘won’ the Strait of Hormuz. It does not control it. America does,” Thorne said in a post on X on Thursday, adding that expanded pipelines could eventually reduce Iran’s ability to use Hormuz as strategic leverage.
