Trump ran a shakedown on global shipping and called it a Reimbursement Fee. It lasted 24 hours.
On Monday, the president announced on Truth Social that the United States would impose a 20% toll on commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz — the waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes. The name is the operation: “Reimbursement” presupposes a debt owed to the United States; “Fee” presupposes statutory authority to collect it. Neither the debt nor the authority exists.
Officials scrambled to determine who would collect the money. Some believed the Treasury Department should take charge. Others argued for the Energy Department, because the strait conveys oil. Meetings with White House aides were planned for the coming days to determine the mechanics of a policy announced that afternoon. The mechanics did not exist because the policy had not been designed. It had been declared. The announcement was designed to be consumed, not executed.
The question of authority had been answered a month earlier. In June, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters: “It’s an international waterway. No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway.” On Tuesday, the president reversed course and posted that the 20% toll would be replaced with “Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States.” The president had overruled his own Secretary of State’s settled legal position with a social media post. The shift from a named fee to unnamed deals is the familiar operation: a scoreable instrument — in Washington, a policy that produces a number Congress can evaluate — 20%, applied to commercial tonnage, becomes an unscorable commitment with no number, no terms, and no mechanism.
There is no Congressional authorization for either version. The Constitution vests the power to lay and collect duties in Article I, Section 8. Fees on commerce require legislative authorization. Neither version of this policy has it. The ceasefire that was supposed to anchor the arrangement had already collapsed, and the pattern of announcing policy before the process exists has become the operating mode.
Underneath the fee that wasn’t, the actual policy proceeded. The naval blockade on Iranian ports — lifted under last month’s ceasefire — is set to resume at 4 p.m. ET Tuesday, according to the U.S. military. U.S. Central Command had already been conducting strikes on Iranian targets near the strait for three days. The blockade is the policy. The fee was the press release. The “Trade and Investment Deals” are the press release about the press release — a commitment to make commitments, announced in place of the thing that could not survive the Secretary of State’s own legal analysis.
The vocabulary borrows from fiscal policy. The authority does not. Reimbursement requires a prior obligation. Fees require statutory authorization. Trade deals require negotiation, ratification, and terms. None of these existed on Monday. None exist now. What remains is the one instrument that requires neither Congress nor a willing counterparty: a naval blockade, imposed by executive order, on a schedule set by the military.
Monday: a fee no one could collect. Tuesday: deals with no terms. The blockade resumes at four o’clock. The president’s name is on all three. The score is the score. This one never had one.