Letter to the editor: The pirates of Hormuz

First published in the Brunswick Beacon, 07.23.26

Jimmy Buffett thought he was born too late. “Yes, I am a pirate,” he sang, “200 years too late. The cannons don’t thunder, there’s nothin’ to plunder, I’m an over-40 victim of fate.” Jimmy wasn’t born too late — he died too soon.

One-fifth of the world’s oil and one-third of its fertilizer passes through the Strait of Hormuz. When Trump broke off negotiations and attacked Iran in February, he accomplished something seven other American presidents never did — he provoked Iran into closing it. Gas and fertilizer prices soared. So did the cost of food and pretty much everything else.

Within days of Trump’s attack, Iran began charging ships up to $2 million to transit Hormuz. The Wall Street Journal called it the “Tehran Toll Booth.” Marco Rubio, Trump’s Secretary of State, called it “illegal under international law and maritime law,” and said, “The whole world should be outraged by it.”

Scott Bessent, Trump’s Treasury Secretary, said the U.S. government “will not tolerate any effort to impose a tolling system in the Strait of Hormuz.”

Their boss took a different tack. After Iran resumed attacking ships in Hormuz, Trump said the U.S. would charge vessels “20% on all cargo shipped” through Hormuz, which he then swapped for “MASSIVE” trade and investment deals from “various Gulf States.”

“I think in the end,” Trump said, “we will end up controlling the whole thing.”

Sotiris Raptis, secretary-general of the European Community Shipowners’ Association, objected: “Freedom of navigation is a cornerstone of the law of the sea, which makes no provisions for tolls to be levied on ships moving through the Strait.”

Brazilian President Lula da Silva called Trump’s move “piracy.”

Most Americans’ nostalgia doesn’t stretch back as far as Jimmy Buffett’s. We yearn for February, before Trump launched his unnecessary war — when the Strait of Hormuz was open and a gallon of gas cost $2.98. We never asked Trump to make piracy great again.

Bob Bannerman

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