The public record on what was said is consistent but not uniform. The written Truth Social text supplies the Guardian Angel reimbursement language. The figure of 20 percent of the oil rests mainly on a reporter's account of Fox News remarks, so it should be read as reported oral framing rather than the text of any instrument. A percentage-of-cargo demand, a vessel transit fee, and a reimbursement claim are three different legal objects, and the public reporting has blurred them. What is clear is that this is conditional leverage tied to the negotiation, not implemented policy.
Not a tariff, not customs, no statutory hook
Start with the statute. A customs duty is a creature of the Tariff Act of 1930 and the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, which by their terms operate on goods entering the customs territory of the United States. HTSUS General Note 2, incorporated through 19 U.S.C. 1202 and mirrored in 19 C.F.R. 101.1 and 146.1, limits that territory to the States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Duties attach to merchandise imported into that territory and entered, or withdrawn from warehouse, for consumption. Oil transiting Hormuz toward Asia or Europe has no U.S. entry and no importation, so there is no dutiable moment, and a customs duty cannot reach it.
Each authority becomes a duty only at the import border, and Hormuz transit supplies no border event. IEEPA does not change that. Even before Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, decided February 20, 2026 and consolidated with Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc., rejected IEEPA as a tariff authority, the statute reached only the blocking and regulation of property transactions, not a charge on a percentage of third-country cargo in foreign waters. Section 232 and Section 301 are import measures on entered merchandise that run through the HTSUS and require investigations and findings, so neither reaches foreign-strait transit. Section 122 authorizes a temporary import surcharge of up to 15 percent ad valorem, in the form of duties on articles imported into the United States, for up to 150 days, which is an import duty on entered goods rather than a transit fee. U.S. tonnage duties and the 2025 USTR port fees apply to vessels entering a U.S. port from a foreign port, which is a charge for entering U.S. ports, not for crossing a foreign strait.
The toll taxes nothing entering the United States and rests on no statute. It is not merely the weakest tariff theory the administration has floated. It is not a tariff theory. The only way to extract a share of the oil is to interdict and offload tankers under naval control, which is seizure, and the governing law then becomes the law of armed conflict, neutrality, blockade, prize, sanctions, and insurance. That moves the question out of trade law.
The toll cuts against the transit-passage norm
The Strait of Hormuz is an international strait bordered by Iran and Oman, not the United States. The United States is not a party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea but has long treated the transit-passage regime as reflecting customary international law for freedom-of-navigation purposes, and it is the leading enforcer of that regime through its freedom-of-navigation program. A U.S.-imposed toll would cut against that regime. UNCLOS Article 38 guarantees transit passage that shall not be impeded, Article 44 bars strait states from hampering transit passage and from suspending it, and Article 42 lists the laws strait states may adopt, covering safety, pollution, customs, and loading, with tolls absent from that list. The baseline predates UNCLOS, because the 1958 Convention on the Territorial Sea already barred both suspension of passage and charges for mere passage. The institutional position runs the same way. The International Maritime Organization Secretary-General has said that freedom of navigation is not negotiable and has rejected any legal basis for tolls on transit through international straits, and the Secretary of State is reported to have called tolling the strait illegal and dangerous, a U.S. position that cuts against a U.S.-imposed toll.
The rule carries a real limit worth stating. Whether transit-passage rules bind non-parties as customary law is contested at the margins under the persistent-objector argument, and the United States is not a UNCLOS party, so the no-toll rule is best presented as the prevailing view rather than as settled law binding a non-party.
A billable-service reflex, not a legal instrument
Without a legal vehicle, the toll fits the administration's broader habit of treating U.S. security provision as a billable service. That pattern helps explain the rhetoric. It does not create a legal instrument. Every earlier revenue move at least taxed goods entering U.S. commerce under a statute that contemplates duties, including the IEEPA reciprocal tariffs struck down in Learning Resources, the Section 122 surcharge, and the move to Section 232 and Section 301 as the durable platforms. The Hormuz toll sits outside that set.
Section 122 shows the difference between a weak tariff theory and no tariff theory
Proclamation 11012 imposed a 10 percent temporary import surcharge under Section 122, effective February 24, 2026 and set to expire July 24, 2026 absent congressional extension, on articles imported into the United States. The statute allows up to 15 percent, but the proclamation imposed 10 percent, so reports of a 15 percent rate are not the operative legal rate absent a further proclamation, a distinction outside counsel has drawn as well. The litigation posture matters too. The Court of International Trade invalidated Proclamation 11012 in Oregon v. United States and Burlap and Barrel, Inc. v. United States, Slip Op. 26-47 of May 7, 2026, but the Federal Circuit stayed that judgment pending appeal on June 11, 2026 in consolidated Nos. 2026-1804 and 2026-1805. Collections continue while the appeal is pending, and the stay is procedural rather than a ruling on the merits. None of this touches the Hormuz point, because Section 122 reaches articles imported into the United States, not oil crossing a foreign strait. The current Section 122 use is a contested tariff theory under active challenge. The Hormuz toll is not a tariff theory at all.
Watch the real instruments, not the toll
For practitioners the toll itself is not a compliance event. There is no HTSUS provision, Chapter 99 heading, CBP guidance, or Federal Register vehicle that could carry it, so it should not be modeled as a tariff. The live risks sit next to it and carry the legal scaffolding the toll lacks.
The near-term tariff exposure sits at the import border. It is the Section 122 surcharge, and any Section 232 or Section 301 measures that are legally issued and implemented through the HTSUS. The 10 percent Section 122 surcharge expires by operation of law on July 24 absent extension. The surcharge remains collectible for now, because the Federal Circuit stayed the CIT judgment on June 11, 2026 and CBP continues collecting. Watch the Federal Circuit merits ruling and the Section 301 investigation conclusions expected over the summer.
The second exposure is sanctions. If cargo interacts with an IRGC-administered payment demand, sanctions exposure is real, paying in crypto does not cure it, and a coerced payment would not erase the risk, though coercion could factor into an enforcement-discretion and mitigation analysis. This is a sanctions question, not a customs one.
The third is war-risk and freight cost. The real cost drivers for any Hormuz transit are war-risk insurance premiums, protection-and-indemnity cover availability, and charterparty war-risk and force-majeure allocation, not a hypothetical toll. Review charterparty clauses and governing-law selection, and notify the flag state, the protection-and-indemnity club, and hull underwriters before any planned transit.
Three triggers should drive escalation. A presidential action naming a statutory basis for a Hormuz charge would call for analysis of that specific authority. A breakdown of the negotiation would raise seizure and blockade risk, governed by national-security law and the law of armed conflict. The Federal Circuit Section 122 ruling, the Section 301 conclusions, and the July 24 expiry together set the real compliance picture.
Market context, for sizing only
The figures below size the market reaction and should not be treated as part of the legal authority analysis. They show how a chokepoint threat reprices freight, insurance, routing, and sanctions risk even when the threatened toll has no U.S. statutory vehicle. Per the Energy Information Administration, oil through Hormuz averaged about 20 million barrels per day in 2024, roughly 20 percent of global petroleum liquids consumption and about a quarter of global maritime traded oil. The International Energy Agency puts LNG through the strait at about a fifth of global LNG trade, mostly Qatari. During the 2026 crisis, war-risk premiums rose from a baseline near 0.25 percent of hull value to about 1 percent, with higher quotes for U.S.- and U.K.-linked tonnage. VLCC rates on the Middle East Gulf to China route roughly quadrupled, with peak fixtures reported near 770,000 to 800,000 dollars a day. Tanker traffic through the strait fell sharply at the peak, and the size of the drop varies by provider and measurement window. The point for a legal reader runs the other way from the toll framing. A toll regime does not secure the strait. It prices and throttles it.
Iran's own 2026 service-fee episode shows what such a regime looks like in practice, which is coercive maritime control rather than customs administration, run through per-barrel payment demands, insurance repricing, freight disruption, and sanctions exposure. That is the opposite of a tariff administered at the border on entered goods under statute. Iran's Majlis is reported to have codified a Strait of Hormuz management plan at the end of March 2026, with IRGC transit fees reported to begin around 1 dollar per barrel, roughly 2 million dollars for a fully loaded VLCC, payable in Chinese yuan, the dollar-pegged stablecoin Tether, or as reported in Bitcoin. No on-chain Bitcoin settlement has been independently confirmed, so the crypto element should be read as reported rather than executed. Empty tankers reportedly passed free, and U.S. and Israeli-linked vessels were reportedly denied transit. Revenue projections in press accounts are speculative and disputed.
Bottom line
The Hormuz toll is a leverage threat with no legal vehicle, not a trade measure. There is no U.S. statute under which it could be collected, because there is no importation into U.S. customs territory to tax. The better use of attention is the set of instruments moving in parallel that do have legal footing, the 10 percent Section 122 surcharge collectible pending the Federal Circuit appeal and expiring July 24 absent extension, any Section 232 and Section 301 measures implemented at the border, and the sanctions and insurance exposure on any actual Hormuz transit. The framing has shifted between a transit fee on foreign vessels and a 20 percent share of the oil, and the 20 percent figure rests on a reporter's account of a phone call rather than any written text. No legal instrument has been issued, and third-party descriptions of seizure by force are not administration policy. The Hormuz toll is not a tariff theory. It is not a trade-compliance event. Watch the instruments that actually have legal scaffolding.