Trump: "I don't think anybody should be able to charge a fee"

By C-SPAN

Community Score: 50% | 9.8K views | 1d

0 community ratings: null thumbs up, null thumbs down

President Trump said Tuesday he backtracked on his call for the U.S. to charge a fee for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz after speaking with the leaders of Gulf allies who opposed the proposal. "I don't think anybody should be able to charge a fee for the strait," he told reporters in the Oval Office, one day after saying ships should pay the U.S. a 20% fee for transiting the critical waterway. The president's proposal would have conflicted with international law and contradicted Secretary of State Marco Rubio's statement last month that "no country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway." "I don't like the concept of a fee," President Trump told reporters. "But at the same time, it's not fair that we're protecting this strait for the entire world." The president said he received calls from "kings and emirs" and other leaders who instead proposed investing money in the United States. "They said we'd love to do it a different way. We'd love to in