Trump threatens to charge U.S. tolls in Strait of Hormuz if final Iran deal not reached in 60 days

U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump on Sat­ur­day threat­ened to im­pose U.S. tolls in the Strait of Hor­muz if a fi­nal deal with Iran isn’t reached in 60 days.

Trump, spend­ing the week­end at Camp David, un­der­scored that the ini­tial agree­ment to end the war with Iran calls for toll-free trav­el through the vi­tal wa­ter­way for 60 days.

Then he said: “there will be NO TOLLS af­ter the 60-day pe­ri­od has ex­pired, un­less they are im­posed by and for the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, should the deal not be com­plet­ed.”

Trump said the mon­ey would be for “ser­vices ren­dered as the Guardian An­gel to the coun­tries of the Mid­dle East for pur­pos­es of both past, present, and fu­ture re­im­burse­ment of costs.”

The U.S. pres­i­dent has faced a lot of blow­back do­mes­ti­cal­ly for how the mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing with Iran ad­dress­es the is­sue of tolls in the Strait of Hor­muz. The deal on­ly se­cures toll-free pas­sage for 60 days and doesn’t pre­clude fu­ture fees.

***THIS IS A BREAK­ING NEWS UP­DATE. AP’s ear­li­er sto­ry fol­lows be­low.

TYRE, Lebanon (AP) — Iran on Sat­ur­day said it closed the Strait of Hor­muz be­cause of Is­rael’s at­tacks in Lebanon and warned that while ne­go­tia­tors were go­ing to Switzer­land for talks with the Unit­ed States on their in­ter­im agree­ment, not much like­ly will hap­pen if the fight­ing doesn’t stop.

Key me­di­a­tor Pak­istan said tech­ni­cal-lev­el talks will be­gin Sun­day, with Qatari me­di­a­tors al­so par­tic­i­pat­ing.

Iran’s joint mil­i­tary com­mand said the strait was closed be­cause of the U.S. “clear breach of its com­mit­ments” by fail­ing to end the war. The in­ter­im deal is meant to stop fight­ing on all fronts.

Short­ly af­ter that, Iran’s state broad­cast­er said the ne­go­ti­at­ing team was leav­ing for Switzer­land, a trip de­layed from Fri­day. State me­dia said the team in­cludes par­lia­men­tary Speak­er Mo­ham­mad Bagher Qal­ibaf, For­eign Min­is­ter Ab­bas Araghchi and cen­tral bank and oil of­fi­cials, among oth­ers. The deal calls for Iran’s as­sets to be un­frozen.

The U.S. dis­put­ed Iran’s an­nounce­ment on the strait. “Iran does not con­trol the Strait of Hor­muz. Traf­fic con­tin­ues to flow, and U.S. forces are mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion to en­sure this re­mains the case,” said Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesper­son for U.S. Cen­tral Com­mand. The mil­i­tary said 55 mer­chant ships tran­sit­ed Sat­ur­day with more than 17 mil­lion bar­rels of oil.

Iran’s team de­parts for talks as un­cer­tain­ty grows

Ne­go­ti­a­tions to­ward a fi­nal agree­ment will be­gin once key com­mit­ments are up­held, Iran­ian For­eign Min­istry spokesper­son Es­mail Baghaei said. If they are not, “the mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing as a whole will be jeop­ar­dized.”

U.S. Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance con­firmed that top ne­go­tia­tors Jared Kush­n­er and Steve Witkoff were in Switzer­land and work­ing through tech­ni­cal de­tails of an­tic­i­pat­ed ne­go­ti­a­tions on Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram. The in­ter­im deal gives ne­go­tia­tors 60 days to reach a nu­clear agree­ment, but that can be ex­tend­ed.

Vance told Fox News that he ex­pects to leave for Switzer­land in “the next cou­ple of days.”

As part of ef­forts to re­vive di­rect talks, Pak­istani In­te­ri­or Min­is­ter Mohsin Naqvi met Araghchi in Tehran ear­li­er Sat­ur­day, ac­cord­ing to of­fi­cials in Is­lam­abad who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause of the sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the is­sue.

The glob­al econ­o­my braced for more un­cer­tain­ty.

Ships be­gan tran­sit­ing af­ter the in­ter­im U.S.-Iran agree­ment was signed ear­li­er in the week, a mile­stone that left plen­ty of ques­tions unan­swered. The U.S. lift­ed its block­ade of Iran’s ports and now al­lows Tehran to sell its oil freely — terms that have left some in Con­gress ask­ing whether the war was worth it.

Is­raeli at­tacks in Lebanon kill at least 16

A Hezbol­lah of­fi­cial told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press that Iran in­formed the mil­i­tant group that Tehran will not re­open the strait un­til Is­rael an­nounces pub­licly that it will com­ply with a “com­pre­hen­sive cease­fire” in Lebanon and an end to mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions there. The of­fi­cial spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause he was not au­tho­rized to speak pub­licly.

The of­fi­cial said Hezbol­lah will com­mit to a cease­fire if Is­rael does.

An Is­raeli mil­i­tary of­fi­cial, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty in line with reg­u­la­tions, lat­er said the mil­i­tary had re­ceived “up­dat­ed di­rec­tives from the po­lit­i­cal ech­e­lon to cease fire.” The of­fi­cial said the mil­i­tary is op­er­at­ing in a de­fen­sive man­ner in Lebanon, which in­cludes the right to re­spond to Hezbol­lah at­tacks.

The of­fi­cial al­so said five Is­raeli sol­diers had been killed in the past 48 hours in south­ern Lebanon.

Ear­li­er Sat­ur­day, Is­raeli strikes on south­ern Lebanon killed at least 16 peo­ple, in­clud­ing two chil­dren, hours af­ter re­ports emerged of a cease­fire agree­ment there. Sev­en peo­ple were trapped un­der rub­ble af­ter strikes hit the south­ern city of Nabatiyeh and near­by vil­lages, Lebanon’s Na­tion­al News Agency said.

The death toll in the lat­est war be­tween Is­rael and Hezbol­lah has sur­passed 4,000, Lebanon’s health min­istry lat­er an­nounced.

An Is­raeli mil­i­tary of­fi­cial said Hezbol­lah fired more than 50 pro­jec­tiles at Is­raeli forces in south­ern Lebanon overnight. Is­rael’s army said it struck dozens of Hezbol­lah tar­gets and mil­i­tants.

On Fri­day, the Is­raeli am­bas­sador to Wash­ing­ton, Yechiel Leit­er, said Is­rael “re­mains firm­ly com­mit­ted to an im­me­di­ate cease­fire” if Hezbol­lah ho­n­ours the agree­ment and ceas­es hos­til­i­ties.

Ear­li­er Sat­ur­day, Hezbol­lah said it had com­mit­ted to the cease­fire but blamed Is­rael for vi­o­lat­ing it Fri­day night and said it would re­pel at­tacks by Is­raeli troops.

The con­flict could sink the US-Iran deal

Nei­ther Is­rael nor Hezbol­lah are sig­na­to­ries to the deal be­tween the U.S. and Iran.

Hezbol­lah and Is­rael went to war two days af­ter the U.S. and Is­rael launched strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, with Hezbol­lah fir­ing rock­ets and drones at north­ern Is­rael and Is­rael seiz­ing large swaths of south­ern Lebanon.

A new round of U.S.-backed talks be­tween the Lebanese gov­ern­ment and Is­rael is ex­pect­ed in Wash­ing­ton next week.

Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu has vowed to keep Is­raeli forces in south­ern Lebanon un­til any threat to Is­rael is elim­i­nat­ed. Hezbol­lah has re­fused to halt its at­tacks un­less Is­rael com­mits to with­draw­ing from Lebanon.

Fight­ing con­tin­ues near the Is­rael-Lebanon bor­der

A strike on Lebanon’s Bar­ish vil­lage killed four mem­bers of a fam­i­ly: par­ents and two chil­dren. In Arab Sal­im vil­lage, a body was pulled from a de­stroyed house, and in Doueir and Kfar Rum­man vil­lages, drone strikes killed a per­son on a mo­tor­cy­cle and a Lebanese sol­dier. Nine peo­ple were killed in strikes in Qan­nar­it, Sohmor and She­hour vil­lages.

Is­raeli jets flew low over the coastal city of Tyre. Res­i­dents told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press they were re­lieved that Tyre had been spared in re­cent days, but now they were re­mind­ed that the war is not over.

“Our en­tire lives would change if there’s a cease­fire,” said one res­i­dent, Hus­sein Khosh­man.

Some res­i­dents of north­ern Is­rael doubt­ed the fight­ing would stop. “I don’t be­lieve in a cease­fire be­cause it doesn’t ex­ist,” said Miri­am Hod in Metu­la. —WASH­ING­TON (AP)

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Sto­ry by KA­REEM CHEHAYEB, BASSEM MROUE and MU­NIR AHMED | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Bassem Mroue re­port­ed from Beirut and Mu­nir Ahmed from Is­lam­abad. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Ab­by Sewell in Beirut, Samy Magdy in Cairo, Se­ung Min Kim and Kon­stan­tin Toropin in Wash­ing­ton, Josef Fe­d­er­man in Jerusalem and Jamey Keat­en in Zurich, Switzer­land, con­tributed to this re­port.