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Iran requires insurance on ships using Strait of Hormuz, fees likely to follow
- ameon 4mo ago"such a good ship, shame if anything happened to it"
- Toluhis 4mo agoSo there are tolls after all and they’re going to make Iran money.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo agoWe paid to get out of kerfuffle in hopes voters forget by the midterms.
- ramijames 4mo agoI'm torn between "this was so bad, there's no way that they can forget" and "god, there's just enough time for just enough people to forget". I hate this.
- fhub 4mo agoPaid starting it. Paid during it. Paid to end it. Political capital + diplomatic reputation + military reputation + strategic reputation.. and cash.
- fny 4mo agoI'd bet Iran will find a way remind voters in October.
- bigmattystyles 4mo agoAre you kidding, Iran is loving the current US leadership.
- paulryanrogers 4mo agoAre they? They may come out stronger than before in the long term. Yet in the short term they've lost iconic and experienced leaders, their navy, and plenty of other military assets. I suppose they may be grateful to have an enemy uniting their people. Though it's not like they lost control of the opposition, even if they've had to kill a few thousand at a time.
- cmrdporcupine 4mo agoOil prices are up, they're getting transiting fees now, as well, and other gulf states were weakened by the conflict. Assume the leadership of both Iran and the US are kleptocrats who both have motivations to have oil prices high and people dependent on them and it all makes a lot more sense. The Iranian people, that's a different story.
- colechristensen 4mo agoTheir stranglehold on power is in no small way influenced by having an enemy. America bringing destruction and failing to bring freedom from their current tyranny has doubtfully bought us many more friends in Iran.
- Danox 4mo agoDoubtful, wishful thinking, America should’ve left well enough alone in 1953. We got rid of a president who was elected, who wanted to nationalize the oil industry within Iran, and when the puppet was installed the Shah he kept it nationalized anyway and for America, the Middle East became a quagmire and still is billions wasted. Too bad the Pan America highway or a Pan-American Railway is but a dream the Chinese probably will get that high speed rail all the way to Europe once Russia and the Ukraine stop fighting, I might add if it wasn’t for the war. There’s a good possibility. It would already be done by now.
- wqaatwt 4mo agoMosaddegh was appointed by the Shah and Iran was very far from a functioning democracy with fair elections in 1953.
- Andrex 4mo agoNothing surprising ever happens in October. You're talking crazy here.
- wang_li 4mo ago[flagged]
- amanaplanacanal 4mo agoLike trump? Say it ain't so!
- solid_fuel 4mo ago> the dude is a nazi pedo trust fund nepo baby You do realize republicans consider that prime credentials for president, right?
- credit_guy 4mo agoThere might be. But, from the US point of view, the tolls are not a strategic problem. A conspiracy theorist might even argue that tolls in the Strait of Hormuz make the US oil exports more competitive, and therefore more profitable. The strategic problem for the US (and the rest of the world, Israel obviously included) is for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. One might say that the Memorandum of Understanding is quite vague about that. But the natural conclusion from last Summer and from the last few months is that the US will not hesitate to bomb Iran if it tries to resume its pursuit of the bomb. This does not need to be codified in any agreement, the threat is there implicitly. The MoU is more focused on the carrots than the stick, but the stick is there, in the background, and Iran knows it.
- amanaplanacanal 4mo agoI think the president wants this all to go away. None of this is making him look good, and he hates it. If the bombing starts again, the straight will be closed again. He's gonna leave the whole problem for the next president.
- Danox 4mo agoI sincerely the next president has the guts to wipe his hands of it and get on about the business of building infrastructure within the United States badly needed infrastructure take a page out of China, actually rebuild from within, actually do something useful in Central and South America, rebuild some Goodwill with Canada and Mexico actually try to solve some problems. Revisit Oak Ridge, Tennessee why are the Chinese dusting off old technology from America and running with it?
- credit_guy 4mo agoThe US could make it clear that if earth moving equipment is spotted within half a mile of the Isfahan, Fordow or Natanz previously bombed facilities, they will be bombed again [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran#Main_facilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran#Main_f...
- epistasis 4mo ago
- belorn 4mo agoTime will tell. I find it very unlikely that other nations will do nothing if nations and companies start to actually pay Iran money. If Iran get money, then the harbor that the Iranian ship goes to also want a cut, and any strait on the way also want their cut, and then why not just demand a cut if they happen to sail by in range of a military ship. Ships are by nature fairly vulnerable to be intercepted, boarded and cargo confiscated. Historically, from around 1300 to 19th century, shipping companies had to have their own army and cannons on board in order to safe guard cargo on the oceans. One could argue that the current period of international peace on the oceans was an abnormality and we are now returning back to normality.
- epistasis 4mo agoIt seems more likely that the Strait of Hormuz is just in the possession of Iran without grander implications for maritime trade. What would other countries do? If the US's military might is powerless to control Iran, what chance would any other country have here? Trump's weakness in giving up the illusion of US power certainly would be a disaster for the US, and world trade, but broader implications seem unlikely.
- belorn 4mo agoWhat can Iran do if other countries consider Iranian ship as free for the taking as retaliation for Iran attacking ships in the strait of hormuz? What would Australia do if Iran attacked their embassy? They would kick them out, denying Iran an embassy in Australia. When it comes to this stuff, a tit for tat strategy is generally the common tactic. If you attack peaceful trade ships, then your own trade ships is valid target for retaliation. If you start to threaten ships with ransoms, other nations will do the same. Invading Iran is a complete different subject compared to boarding trading ships well outside the border of Iran. Historically, a Letter of marque was a very cheap way to manage countries which did not respect your own ships. Some laws are still in the law books regarding how to deal with prize ships, which illustrate how close we are to the time where peaceful traversal of waters was not a given. One of the biggest trade partner for Iran is China. Will China pay the toll? Will Iran attack their ships? Will China retaliate if they do? If China do not need to pay the toll, which other countries would then be willing to one-sided pay for access to the strait?
- tjpnz 4mo agoThey should call it a Trump tax.
- walrus01 4mo agoAre we all tired of so much winning yet?
- fnordpiglet 4mo agoMission accomplished!
- andrekandre 4mo agofool me three times and shame on... somebody
- swat535 4mo agoAs an Iranian, I should mention that all the money going to Iran is not going to the Iranian people. The government will simply gobble it up, like everything else and use it to fund the resistance groups and enrich themselves. Iranians will not benefit much, however they will benefit from sanction relief for sure. I know some of them has to pass through congress and that's virtually impossible considering the Israeli influence in the US government, but I'm hopeful that TRUMP is at least forced to remove _some_ of them. Economical sanctions always hurt the ordinary citizens and hardly the government.
- culi 4mo agoWell certainly people will benefit from the removal of sanctions, right? The research quite clearly shows that it's regular people that are most affected by them. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268025001090 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S017626802... Believe it or not, Gallup used to conduct surveys in Iran up until 2023. For the question of "Is it a good or bad time to find a job" you can see a clear spike from 2017 to 2018 following the abrupt resumption of sanctions. It went from 68% to 92% of people saying it's a bad time to find a job https://news.gallup.com/poll/611210/iran-votes-lukewarm-leadership-cool-economy.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/611210/iran-votes-lukewarm-lead...
- citadel_melon 4mo ago
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4mo agoIncredible that Iran is victorious (so far). War is one way of forcing political will on another. The US military executed nearly flawlessly yet US leadership doesn't want to pay the cost of defeating Iran by force. Why even have this military if anything that affects the market makes the US cower in fear?
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> War is one way of forcing political will on another War is politics by other means (Clausewitz).
- nemomarx 4mo agoThe cost of defeating Iran military (in enough detail to stop them from firing rockets at ships or doing insurgency harassment etc) would probably take years, so honestly the whole operation was unrealistic from the outset without trying to install a favored successor.
- ceejayoz 4mo agoIt doesn't help that they nearly blew up the favored successor. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/us/politics/iran-israel-us-leader-ahmadinejad.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/us/politics/iran-israel-u... > Mr. Ahmadinejad was injured on the war’s first day by an Israeli strike at his home in Tehran that had been designed to free him from house arrest, the American officials and an associate of Mr. Ahmadinejad said. He survived the strike, they said, but after the near miss he became disillusioned with the regime change plan.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- wolvoleo 4mo agoIs this really just about the market? I imagine it's also about a ton of body bags coming back just around the midterms. Because that will happen in a ground war.
- ggm 4mo agoThe low bar path out for Iran is not to charge US ships insurance. The people most likely to complain would not complain if America has an exception.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo agoDoes anything America imports through the Strait travel on U.S.-flagged vessels?
- s1artibartfast 4mo agoThe US import very little from Hormuz on any ship. Most buy ers are in asia or europe.
- Zigurd 4mo agoIf the only recourse is to spend tens of billions on another bombing campaign, or even more on a land war, why would Iran be looking for a path out of anything?
- knollimar 4mo agoAmericans are fueled by spite, though.
- RobRivera 4mo agoI see
- SpicyLemonZest 4mo agoSpite against whom? Like most Americans, I have a number of grave concerns about the Iranian regime and the terrible things they've done. But on a personal level, Donald Trump has done a lot more to make me feel spiteful than either Masoud Pezeshkian or Mojtaba Khamenei have. I think everyone involved is well aware of this fact and it's going to continue to severely constrain Trump's options.
- Zigurd 4mo agoTo the victor belong the insurance policy commissions
- fuzzfactor 4mo agoAl Capone couldn't have come up with a more "attractive" insurance plan himself.
- Fricken 4mo ago"Pay us and we won't fuck your shit up" is the history of civilization
- comrade1234 4mo agoSomething that I found interesting was how far away the USA had to keep its navy. What's the pint of having 11 aircraft carrier groups when you can barely even use them?
- dv35z 4mo agoIs there a map that shows generally where they are?
- godwinson__4-8 4mo agoThey were still used heavily... you think aircraft carriers are only useful if you can get right next to your target? A huge part of American doctrine is to kill the enemy before you are ever in their view. This is also just basically intuitive. I'm not sure what is confusing you. Its like asking why isn't a bomber parked next to its target before taking off and deploying its munitions.
- symian 4mo agoI think the essence of the question you responded to is: The U.S. has a gigantic navy and couldn’t force safe passage through Hormuz. Why is this the case? Is the U.S. wasting its money given this?
- AtlasBarfed 4mo agoThe answer is yes. The world is deglobalizing, and while drones may not exert Blue water power projection, they now dominate littoral power projection. Marine invasions may be impossible in drone combat without drone superiority, and right now, Joan superiority is not a thing that I think exists between two fully drone enabled armies And note the US army is not a fully drone enabled army.
- jimbob45 4mo agoWere straits not doing insurance at all before? Would have thought that all straits were charging for it after the Ever Given disaster. The strategy can’t permanently be “wait for the EU or US to fix it in a week as worldwide markets crash”.
- gtirloni 4mo agoThe Ever Given was stuck in the Suez Canal. Narrowest width: - Strait of Hormuz (33 km) - Bab-el-Mandeb (26 km) - Strait of Gibraltar (13 km) - Strait of Malacca (2.8 km) - Bosphorus (700 m) - Suez Canal (205 m) <- Ever Given - Panama Canal (55 m)
- jimbob45 4mo agoNo I understand that the Suez Canal is unique but there are other ways one ship can blow it for everyone. Dumped toxic cargo for one.
- zaptheimpaler 4mo agoLMAO they're learning how to do legally defensible racketeering the way US insurance companies do, very smart.
- lokar 4mo agoLook at the doc (from Iran), the things covered by the “insurance” have only ever happened (in the straight) due to Iran.
- gafferongames 4mo agoART OF THE DEAL
- walrus01 4mo agoSome real 5 dimensional chess being played here
- BashiBazouk 4mo agoWhy would they not just build a pipeline from Kuwait to Oman or even UAE to the other side of Oman? If the Keystone pipeline is profitable, so would this I would think. Seems like a temporary problem or a fine line for Iran to charge fees low enough the effort would not be worth it...
- decimalenough 4mo agoThey already did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habshan%E2%80%93Fujairah_oil_pipeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habshan%E2%80%93Fujairah_oil_p... But it obviously wasn't designed to carry all the oil going through the Strait.
- godwinson__4-8 4mo agoIt should be pointed out that facilities connected to this pipeline were targeted during the conflict.
- godwinson__4-8 4mo agoImagine thinking this was a good idea when you cut your ribbon after all that money and effort and then a ~$500 drone flies over and with one explosion has it leaking. Do you think people are dumb? Obviously beneficial and easy actions that no one has taken rarely exist in the real world. You're basically suggesting the people actually there who have a better view than you are profoundly stupid.
- colechristensen 4mo agoOil pipelines are underground. The small proportions of above-ground sections were indeed targeted in this recent conflict but in war-prone areas so is the rest of your oil infrastructure including ships at sea and the ground based facilities can be fortified and defended.
- godwinson__4-8 4mo agoIs it vulnerable to the same sort of asymmetric attack, yes or no? Can the system run if those above ground areas are destroyed? Of course hypothetically they can be defended. Just like hypothetically a few drones should not be able to shut the world's most powerful navy out of the strait. In reality we know the real answer lies in an admission of your answer. The best defense is electing governments which will not wantonly engage in armed conflicts.
- jmyeet 4mo agoIf this was obvious to some random guy like me at least two months ago [1][2] without access to intelligence community information and military assessments then this should surprise absolutely no one in the administration. I said then and have been vindicated (IMHO): this will go down as the largest strategic blunder in US history. It's also going to reshape the region away from US influence because of the hollowness of US security guarantees. The GCC are going to have to deal with Iran as a fellow oil-producing nation. A big loser here is the UAE and I'm not sure that Dubai ever recovers. Before all of this, Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz was a theory that was never tested. Traffic passed freely. But a war was forced upon them by the US and Israel so if any of these countries (or anyone else for that matter) is unhappy at the outcome, you know where to point the finger. One irony in all this is that the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea would guarantee free transit passage through territorial waters like the Strait of Hormuz. Iran isn't a signatory. The ironic part is that the United States isn't either. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47944212 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47944212 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47937691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47937691
- ChoGGi 4mo ago> you know where to point the finger. Greenland, Cuba, or Canada?
- Freedom2 4mo agoSome HNers will unironically blame the Democrats.
- jmyeet 4mo agoMaybe I'm misreading this. Tone and particularly sarcasm can be lost in text. But I think that comment you're responding to was making fun of the administration. One thing this administration is not known for is taking accountability and admitting they made a massive error. No, it'll be someone else's fault so we'll move on to whoever the next bogeyman is. And it can't be China because the US just objectively lost a war with Iran. You think we're going to win a war with China? No. What we really need is a tune-up fight. A bit like how Reagan invaded Grenada two days after the Beiruit bombing that ultimately led to US withdrawal from Lebanon. This was basically soothing our hurt feelings by using the US miltiary, the largest in the world, to invade a Sandals resort.
- bjourne 4mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47200879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47200879 I wonder what happened to the Iranian buddies? So many HN accounts whose Iranian friends were all supposedly celebrating the US-Israeli bombings of their country of origin. Are they still cheering?
- TiredOfLife 4mo agoThose that lived in Iran were executed by Iran.
- freitasm 4mo agoSo much winning.
- classified 4mo agoDid Iran just rediscover the protection racket?
- daft_pink 4mo agoI don’t understand why we’re calling it insurance? Does it pay out if something bad happens?
- pvaldes 4mo agoAnd here comes the hell of unnoticed collateral effects For example. Are the bombs throw over Iran, cancelling the monsoon rains in several states of India? > "After an encouraging start to the SW monsoon season, India is now witnessing a prolonged pause in its advance, raising concerns over rainfall deficits, soaring temperatures and water shortages in some states. (source: Bussiness Standard)" https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/monsoon-in-india-rainfall-deficit-mumbai-2026-el-nino-imd-agriculture-126061900339_1.html https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/monsoon-in-indi... Also: "(Without rains) The stock of drinking water in the State of Goa can last about one month". It seems that all those clouds are being pushed directly offshore to release into the ocean.
- colinb 4mo agoBetteridge’s law strikes again. (I came close to finishing that sentence with a question mark. Oh the irony) More seriously, I looked at the article you linked. It talks about lots if complex climate stuff that I don’t understand. I don’t think it mentions bombs as a cause. Or the war. Please show your receipts.
- pvaldes 4mo agoLets just say that Insurance companies near the place will need to worry about much more than the Strait of Hormuz in 2026
- pvaldes 4mo ago> It talks about complex climate stuff that I don’t understand. Not your fault. The biosphere is a extremely complex system. We pay researchers for spending their lives studying the details of the whole picture at a fine grain level so we can react on time, lets go ... [error 404: Scientist not found. Data deleted. DOGE was here] Hum, though luck, the best expert advice can't work when everybody is anti-science. Maybe nobody will be able to prove this pretty obvious effect before the damage. A hint: hot air goes up, like insurance costs will.
- geor9e 4mo agoIt's a weird editorial choise to call them insurance and fees in the headline. Usually only the extortioner uses euphemisms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket
- culi 4mo agoI think everyone is aware this is a toll, but here's NYT from June 15: Iran Says Strait of Hormuz Won’t Have ‘Tolls’ but It Will Have ‘Fees’ > Charging a toll is illegal under international law, but some fees are allowed for services. It is not clear what services Iran would provide, but there were no fees charged before the war.