Trump’s Strait of Hormuz bid will cost millions, opening “a very dangerous Pandora’s box,” experts say.

If President Trump would do well for him the announcement that the US will impose a 20% tariff. for goods passing through the Strait of Hormuz could cost the largest vessels more than $30 million per vessel, industry experts say, while shipping companies have called the concept illegal.

It’s not clear how the Trump administration would impose such a tax, but Lloyd’s List estimates that the 20% fee would be about $17 billion for a fully loaded natural gas carrier.

At current Brent crude prices, hovering around $80 a barrel, about $16 per barrel “will go to Trump,” said Amena Bakr, head of the Middle East and OPEC+ at industry intelligence firm Kpler, in a social media post on Monday.

Even if Brent falls to $60 a barrel, the cost of an all-stock crude carrier, which can carry two million barrels, will reach $24 million per shipment, Petras Katinas, who researches climate, energy and defense at the RUSI Europe think tank, told CBS News on Tuesday.

Iranian payments set at the beginning of the dispute, by contrast, were reported to be around $2 million, or about 1.2% of the value of a large crude oil tanker, and illegal payments made quietly between governments were as low as $120,000, Lloyd’s said.

The US imposing fees would be “opening a very dangerous Pandora’s Box,” said Katinas, “because in some parts of the world, other countries will decide that they want to impose tolls. Therefore, we are completely undermining international maritime law, which is already in a weak state.”

Some industry groups and shippers said it would be illegal.

“Whether the rate of passage is $200 or $20m, there is no legal basis for charging ships to exercise their right of passage in an international lane,” Lloyd’s List editor Richard Meade wrote on Monday. “Whether such demands come from Tehran or Washington is largely beside the point. The danger lies in changing the idea that access to one of the world’s most important sea arteries can be subject to politically motivated payments.”

Any charging of freight charges in the Strait of Hormuz “would be a mistake,” German company Hapag-Lloyd told CBS News on Tuesday.

“It would be fundamentally wrong to charge tolls when you’re going through international waters,” a spokesperson for the shipping authority told CBS News. “Infrastructure costs such as the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal are different, because they represent large infrastructure investments. This is not the case for the Strait of Hormuz.”

Mr. Trump said on Monday that the US would be the “guardian” of the strait, the only way for cargo ships and tankers to reach the ports of major energy producers in the Persian Gulf. About 20 percent of the world’s oil and natural gas exports passed through the Strait of Hormuz before the war began.

He also said that the US is reversing its blockade of Iranian ports and related vessels, and that the US will be “reimbursed” for the costs associated with providing security for the crisis by imposing a 20% tariff on all goods shipped through the narrow passage.

The US has repeatedly criticized Iran for charging commercial vessels using the strait after Washington and Tehran signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at reopening the passage to all shipping.

“No country is allowed to impose tolls or fees on international waterways,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month. “That is the international law that exists.”

The Strait was always free and open to commercial traffic before the US and Israel launched their joint war against Iran in Feb. 28. Iran responded to the attack by attacking shipping and Gulf states, which effectively prevented most of the hijackers from using the waterway.

The United Nations’ International Maritime Organization said Tuesday it “strongly opposes tolls on vehicles used for international navigation.”

“There is no legal basis for introducing mandatory tolls to pass through the road,” an IMO spokesperson told CBS News.

Recently on June 25, Rubio told the meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Bahrain that the Iranian tolls in the crisis could risk “total chaos” as a precursor to international shipping.

“International waterways are not part of any nation. This is a fundamental principle in the world today, without which the world would be in chaos,” said Rubio. “If, in fact, we accept that you can charge a fee to use an international waterway because it’s close to your place, that will spread around the world like a stomach bug.”

Oil prices rose to around $87 a barrel on Tuesday after an increase of about 10% On Monday when Mr. Trump announcing 20% ​​safety deposit plan in Public Truth post.

“Getting an immediate 20% tax on cargo ships that are already underway could increase the negative cost implications for global supply chains; while President Trump’s social media announcement may seem extreme, his agenda and rationale are sound: safety has value,” energy and security consultant Myles B. Caggins III told CBS News on Tuesday.

Iran agreed to the assessment, but the Islamic Republic’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, scoffed at President Trump’s announcement of a 20% tariff, saying on social media that it was a “very large” future payment.

“POTUS is absolutely right. Anyone who provides safe and secure passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service,” Araghchi wrote. “Iran has always been the SWEET of the Straits and will be FOREVER. Yes, 20% is too much. We will be fair.”

Caggins, a retired US Army colonel who led operations in Iraq and Syria, said Gulf oil and gas producers are “already using alternative routes to get supplies to market” because of the impact of the Iran war on traffic. He said that Iraq in particular has moved to prioritize the export of oil through pipelines to Turkey, and trucks to Syria.

The comments of Mr. Trump on Monday happened after the Ministry of Defense of the United Arab Emirates said Iranian cruise missiles hit two oil tankers using the southern shipping route across the strait, off the coast of Oman, which Tehran does not accept.

The US continued this encourage commercial ships to use the southern route despite repeated attacks by Iran.