US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reiterated his opposition to proposed Iranian fees on vessels moving through the Strait of Hormuz, stating, “Fees and tolls are the same thing to me.

“If you’re paying someone to go there, I don’t care if you call it a fee, or a toll, or a donation; it’s a toll, and that’s how we’re going to define it,” he tells reporters. “That’s an international waterway. There isn’t a nation on Earth that supports having to pay money to go through the straits.”

Rubio questions how a tolling or fee mechanism would work and what the consequences would be for refusing to pay. He suggests vessels would be targeted for failure to pay fees.

“That sort of system is not only unwise, it’s unworkable.”