Fox Business contributor on Trump threatening a 20% toll in the Strait of Hormuz: “It's a negotiating sledgehammer”
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From the July 14, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends
LAWRENCE JONES (FOX HOST): Oil, shipping and the global economy all hanging in the balance. Fox Business contributor Lou Basenese joins us now. Lou, do you see this happening when it comes to the tolls? Americans are concerned this may affect them at the pump as a result of this.
LOU BASENESE (FOX BUSINESS CONTRIBUTOR) Yeah, absolutely. Look, I think this is the tariff logic applied to Iran. So it's escalate to negotiate. I don't think we'll ever see this 20% cargo fee go into effect because it's really big. I mean, just for comparison, at $80 a barrel of oil, the average large vessel carries 2 million barrels. That's about 160 million; that's $32 million fee for that. And the Iranians are talking about maybe a $2 million fee per ship. So the president knows what he's doing. We saw this with China and the tariff war, right? Let's raise it to 100%, no let's make it 200%. And then it brings everyone to the table. So it's a negotiating sledgehammer. And for the everyday Americans, I think the important thing is we haven't seen oil spike back to over $100 a barrel.
JONES: Why is that?
BASENESE: Just because I think everyone knows this is a tactic to escalate to get them to the table. Longer term this trend we're seeing that we've restored shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. I don't think it's the president's plan to turn the Strait into the New Jersey Turnpike and charge a permanent toll. It's to restore order there and keep it from being a forever hostage land like it has been for the last 40-plus years.