Iran War Live Updates: Trump Drops Plan to Tax Ships but Will Restore Blockade in Strait

The two countries exchanged attacks, reigniting their war over the waterway. The U.S. prepared to restart a blockade of Iran’s ports on Tuesday.

July 14, 2026, 2:09 p.m. ET27 minutes ago

by Eric SchmittMax BearakRavi Mattu and Jenny Gross

Here’s the latest.

President Trump on Tuesday walked back a plan he had announced a day earlier to charge a fee on each ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz in return for providing security. But as he backtracked on strategy and ordered a new round of attacks on Iran, Mr. Trump’s path out of the monthslong conflict remained unclear.

Tuesday’s strikes signified a return to the kind of intensive bombing campaign that characterized the start of the war more than four months ago, and came as both Washington and Tehran are seeking to assert control over the strait, a crucial transit route for oil and gas shipments.

With the preliminary cease-fire between the countries now in tatters, and the U.S. military preparing to restart its naval blockade of Iranian ports, sea and air traffic to the region have been severely curtailed. Those disruptions threaten more consequences for the global economy.

Mr. Trump’s approach to the question of fees on Hormuz shipping illustrates the dizzying shifts in U.S. policy that have characterized the conflict and caused oil prices to fluctuate nearly every day. He has floated and then dropped the idea before, and when Iran said it would impose fees, top Trump administration officials said the concept was unacceptable.

On Monday, the president announced his own heavy fee: twenty percent of the value of all cargo shipped through the strait. But within a day he had canceled the plan, saying “king and emirs” from the Persian Gulf had called him and persuaded him to drop the fee and let them invest in U.S. companies instead.

“I don’t think anybody should be able to charge a fee for the Strait,” Mr. Trump said, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office.

Oil prices soared after the latest strikes by American and Iranian forces, one of the biggest daily jumps since the start of the war. The number of vessels transiting the waterway also plummeted. Only 10 ships were reported to have passed through on Monday, the smallest daily total in more than a month, and far fewer than the roughly 130 vessels that transited the strait daily before the war.

Iranian state media reported several explosions in the southwest of the country on Tuesday. The deputy governor of Bushehr province, Ehsan Jahanian, said four locations in the port city of Bushehr, home to Iran’s only civilian nuclear power plant, had been attacked, according to the state news agency, IRNA.

Asked about the reports of new strikes, a U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, confirmed that American forces had conducted “a few additional strikes to eliminate emerging threats.”

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said overnight that it had fired on two tankers after they attempted to transit near the coast of Oman rather than through Iranian-controlled waters.

The Iranian military also said it had launched strikes at U.S. military facilities in Bahrain and Jordan, and Kuwait’s army said on social media that the country was dealing with hostile missile and drone attacks. Officials from all three countries said the attacks were being intercepted.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, said that the naval blockade of Iranian ports, which was in effect from April to June, would resume at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday local time — 4 p.m. in the eastern United States.

Here’s what else to know:

• War powers: Mr. Trump notified Congress that fighting with Iran had resumed, and dismissed the importance of the cease-fire deal that he had long trumpeted. Read more ›

• Oil prices: The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, fell back after Mr. Trump dropped his plan to impose a hefty fee on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Earlier on Tuesday, the price had risen above $86 a barrel for the first time in a month. Read more ›

• European airlines: The European Union’s aviation safety regulator on Tuesday warned airlines to stop operating in the region, saying the increased military attacks posed a “high risk to civil flights.” The agency said that airlines should avoid the airspace of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and part of the Gulf of Oman.

  
  

July 14, 2026, 2:30 p.m. ET5 minutes ago

Lynsey Chutel and Sanam Mahoozi

Reporting from London

The office of Iran’s former leader denies a New York Times report that he was an Israeli asset.

A statement on the social media page of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president known for his hard-line anti-Israel stance, denied on Tuesday that he was at the center of a secret Israeli operation to groom him as an intelligence asset.

A New York Times investigation, citing American and Iranian officials familiar with the operation, reported that Israel had orchestrated a yearslong plan to install Mr. Ahmadinejad as Iran’s new leader once the Iran war ended.

The plan included arranging a climate change conference in Hungary as a front that would allow the former president and Israeli intelligence operatives to meet for secret discussions. The operation culminated in a dramatic rescue attempt early in the Iran war after Mr. Ahmadinejad’s home was hit in an airstrike, but he became disillusioned and left the safe house where he was being kept, the Times reported, according to people with knowledge of what happened.

The statement from Mr. Ahmadinejad’s office denied what it called “Hollywood-style claims” designed to undermine his popularity. The Times investigation, he said, “sought to exploit the political sensitivities arising from military threats,” and was an example of “psychological warfare” against the public.

The degree of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s direct involvement in the statement could not be confirmed. The statement was signed by the former leader’s office, and at times referred to him in the third person. It was also published by a news outlet close to Mr. Ahmadinejad.

The Times cited four senior Iranian officials as saying that Mr. Ahmadinejad was under house arrest in the custody of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence wing, though his current status is unclear. The statement on Mr. Ahmadinejad’s social media page denied that he was under house arrest.

“The office of the former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made blatantly false accusations about our reporting in an attempt to manipulate public opinion,” said Nicole Taylor, a spokeswoman for The New York Times, in a statement. “Our July 13 exclusive was the ongoing work of a team of deeply sourced, expert reporters who first broke the story that the U.S. and Israel had tapped Mr. Ahmadinejad to assume power in Iran as part of a regime change; we stand by their revelatory reporting as it continues.”

Israeli officials have not commented publicly about the plan to install Mr. Ahmadinejad as Iran’s leader. Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a spokesman for Mr. Ahmadinejad, had declined to comment before the story was published.

As the president of Iran from 2005 to 2013, Mr. Ahmadinejad had threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.” But in recent years, he had clashed with regime leaders, accusing them of corruption, and toned down the anti-Israel rhetoric.

On Feb. 28, early in the war, an Israeli airstrike hit Mr. Ahmadinejad’s compound, targeting the building of his bodyguards and his armored vehicle. After the strike, according to four senior Iranian officials, a black Peugeot car arrived, picked up Mr. Ahmadinejad and whisked him away at high speed. At a safe house, the former Iranian leader became agitated by the operation and disillusioned with the plan, according to people with knowledge of what happened. It is not clear when he left the safe house and under what circumstances.

After the strike, Iran’s intelligence agencies began investigating and piecing together his connection to Israel, The Times reported.

July 14, 2026, 2:27 p.m. ET9 minutes ago

Robert Jimison

Congressional reporter

Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, said that the war in Iran “needs to end” and urged senior administration officials to update lawmakers on the latest developments after the resumption of airstrikes by both countries. Cassidy told reporters on Capitol Hill that senators “should have another briefing.”

July 14, 2026, 2:08 p.m. ET28 minutes ago

Jenny Gross

Business and economics reporter

Trump’s U-turn on fees for passage through the Strait of Hormuz raises new risks for the shipping industry.

One day after proposing a fee for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump on Tuesday said the United States would instead guarantee safe passage to vessels from Persian Gulf states that agree to invest in the United States.

It’s not clear how Mr. Trump’s plans would play out, and the president’s latest comments left questions unanswered.

But the flip-flop shows how far the debate over the strait, the vital waterway in the Middle East, has strayed from longstanding practices in the shipping industry and underscores the level of unpredictability that businesses working in the region are facing as the conflict between the United States and Iran lurches back to war.

“The fact that things are changing all the time, itself, means that it’s hard to make a decision to normalize trade,” said Lasse Kristoffersen, the chief executive of Wallenius Wilhelmsen, a car shipping and logistics company based in Norway.

Jakob Larsen, the chief safety and security officer at BIMCO, the world’s largest shipping association, said that Mr. Trump’s plan raises the risk that other countries will try to monetize the international waterway that they border.

“That is, of course, really, really problematic from a shipowner’s perspective and for shipping in general,” Mr. Larsen said. “It will only drive up the cost of transportation across the globe, and that will eventually hit the end customer and create inflationary pressure.” Ultimately, when leaders make comments that undermine international conventions, the conventions become weaker, he said.

On Tuesday, a day after saying he would charge 20 percent fees to ships in exchange for U.S. military protection when using the waterway, Mr. Trump said he would scrap his proposed fees if Gulf countries invested in the United States.

“Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States,” he said on social media. “Those Investments will be MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future.”

Mr. Trump’s post did not say which countries he was referring to or whether countries outside the Persian Gulf that use the strait, including allies like Japan and South Korea, would also be asked to make U.S. investments.

Mr. Trump’s remarks came weeks after his administration, in response to Iran threatening to impose tolls in the strait, said such levies were unacceptable.

The International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency that regulates global shipping, said Tuesday that it was aware of Mr. Trump’s announcement about seeking trade and investment deals in exchange for safe passage through the strait and was awaiting more details.

“We have always been consistent on our stance on fees — I.M.O. stands firmly against charging fees for passage through straits used for international navigation,” said Natasha Brown, a spokeswoman for the agency, in a statement on Tuesday. “There is no legal basis through which to introduce mandatory tolls simply to transit through a strait.”

Shipping is the cheapest way to move goods, and more than 80 percent of world trade is transported by ship. While neither the United States nor Iran has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the treaty that calls for shipping through international waterways to be free, they have generally followed its norms for decades.

Before the war, the Strait of Hormuz was an international shipping route that vessels sailed through without charge. But since the start of the war, Iranian officials have repeatedly said they intend to monetize the strait.

Iran immediately seized on Mr. Trump’s comments as confirmation that governments that offer security for vessels have the right to charge. “POTUS is absolutely right. Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service,” Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on social media on Monday. “20% is of course too much. We will be fair.”

Iran fired on three vessels moving through the strait overnight. Two seafarers were killed and 14 were injured, including four seriously, according to the International Maritime Organization.

Traffic in the strait slowed nearly to a halt on Monday, as Iran and the United States exchanged strikes for a third straight day, and the fragile truce between the countries appeared to collapse. Only 10 vessels passed through the strait on Monday, the lowest level in a month — a fraction of the more than 130 vessels a day that would pass through the strait before the war, according to Kpler, a maritime data company.

Iran is unlikely to back down in response to U.S. pressure, according to Eurasia Group, the geopolitical risk consultancy. The firm predicted that Iran would continue to attack ships to pressure Oman and the other Gulf states to agree to give Iran permanent influence in the strait.

Mr. Kristoffersen said that any limitation on freedom of navigation would be against the rules that had governed international shipping for decades.

“Any breach of this principle, of course, could make others tempted to try to do the same,” he said. “And that is why we hold that principle so high.” Mr. Kristoffersen, whose company had one vessel stranded in the Persian Gulf that exited in early July, said he would not be sending vessels into the gulf until there was no longer a risk that vessels would be attacked. “If the intention is still there, military protection is not sufficient for us.”

Peter Eavis contributed reporting from New York.