The strait is nobody’s strait. It’s everybody’s strait. So nobody owns the strait. It’s there for free passage of goods and services on the high seas. So technically speaking, a blockade of a country or a country’s ability to export goods and services is an act of war, but it’s also illegal to charge $2 million a ship for transit through the straits, which is what Iran has been doing. And if you extrapolate that to a hundred ships a day and 365 days a year, that’s a profit of $73 billion. That’s more than the U.S. Navy got for its shipbuilding budget. So they’d be able to reconstitute those things that have been taken away from them.
Center for Maritime Strategy
Admiral James G. Foggo, U.S. Navy (Ret.) | Quoted by Michel Martin
External Source: National Public Radio
The strait is nobody’s strait. It’s everybody’s strait. So nobody owns the strait. It’s there for free passage of goods and services on the high seas. So technically speaking, a blockade of a country or a country’s ability to export goods and services is an act of war, but it’s also illegal to charge $2 million a ship for transit through the straits, which is what Iran has been doing. And if you extrapolate that to a hundred ships a day and 365 days a year, that’s a profit of $73 billion. That’s more than the U.S. Navy got for its shipbuilding budget. So they’d be able to reconstitute those things that have been taken away from them.
The full article is available at National Public Radio
Admiral James G. Foggo, U.S. Navy (Ret.), Dean