2026-07-30T04:01:25.312Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/politics/trump-iran-strait-of-hormuz-tolls
美国对伊朗的战争亟需新思路。
尽管在特朗普总统用脏话警告伊朗将再次“挨揍”后，美军于周三发起了新的空袭，但他仍未能迫使德黑兰回到谈判桌前。
而他此前自诩为为中东带来历史性和平的外交努力，也随着一份措辞模糊的谅解备忘录破裂而宣告失败。
他目前可供选择的改变局势的方案——要么冒着让数百名美军士兵在地面战争中丧生的风险，要么承认德黑兰对霍尔木兹海峡的控制权——都如此令人难以接受，以至于“没有好选项”已经成了陈词滥调。
“我们确实陷入了困境，”美国国防优先事务智库亚洲参与项目主任莱尔·戈尔茨坦说道。
伊朗战争的代价并不局限于交战双方。中东和欧洲的政治与经济反弹愈演愈烈，外部各方承受的压力不断升级，推动外交重启的呼声日益高涨。
如果海峡对大多数民用船舶来说仍是禁区，那么战争带来的严重影响将进一步恶化：全球石油储备减少，柴油和化肥等石油基产品价格飙升，欧洲今年冬天还可能面临液化天然气短缺。海湾国家作为高端旅游和外籍人士聚集地的形象，也因这场战争被彻底击碎。处境艰难的欧洲各国政府正因战争引发的生活成本上涨而遭受民众指责。
在美国，这场战争正威胁着特朗普的第二任期。周三公布的一项新的CNN/SSRS民调显示，民众对他的伊朗政策和油价政策的支持率低于30%。这一数据可能会对共和党在11月的中期选举中造成灾难性打击，也将否定特朗普在2024年竞选时提出的“提高民众生活负担能力”的承诺。
经典的外交艺术在于创造空间、提供激励，并找准时机说服对手让步。
与许多冲突局势一样，最终平息战火、为伊朗核计划等核心问题的谈判铺平道路的框架是可以构想出来的。在当前情况下，这可能需要一项折中方案：美国可以避免承认因伊朗有效控制海峡而遭遇战略失败，伊朗则可以辩称，它在这场重创本国领导层和军队的战争中保住了主要成果。
但打造一条通往这一目标的政治和外交道路将充满艰险。而降级过程需要制定海峡未来管理方案，可能还需要外部大国参与，以保障民用海上交通的安全。
在外交陷入僵局的当下，仍有两缕希望之光。
其一，正在浮现的建立国际机构的构想，该机构将允许包括伊朗在内的海湾国家最终共同管理海峡贸易并从中获利，同时稳定全球油价。具有讽刺意味的是，前进之路可能就藏在被废弃的谅解备忘录的字里行间——该备忘录曾呼吁伊朗和阿曼“与其他波斯湾沿岸国家展开磋商，确定霍尔木兹海峡的未来管理和海事服务方案”。
其二，突破口也可能来自美国之外。本周有报道称，英国主办的讨论保障海峡船只安全的国际会议未能如期召开，但扩大外交参与的总体思路可能会卷土重来，尤其是因为第三方国家，尤其是欧洲和东亚国家，会因现状而蒙受巨大损失。
近日唯一公开的外交动向，是伊朗与同样毗邻海峡的阿曼在副外长级别进行的磋商，探讨海峡重新开放后管理海上交通的潜在方案。
本周CNN报道称，阿曼反对德黑兰提出的对海峡油轮征收过境费的提议，理由是国际法规定国际航行海峡享有自由和安全通行权。但阿曼政府正在宣扬一项折中方案，即对“海事服务”收费，这或许能提供一个变通办法。
伦敦智库波尔斯与巴扎尔基金会发表的一篇文章探讨了“霍尔木兹收费”的构想。该构想并非对使用海峡的船只征收通行费，而是由拥有波斯湾海岸线的国家为管理该水道缴纳费用。其中一个模式可与连接印度洋和太平洋的马六甲海峡相类比，由新加坡、印度尼西亚和马来西亚共同参与管理。
该文章还引用了荷兰鹿特丹港的收费标准来测算可能的收入规模。在鹿特丹港，最大型油轮需按每总载重吨约0.08美元缴纳“可持续发展”费。作者测算，如果波斯湾也征收类似费用，新的机构每年将获得约2600万美元的收入。即便伊朗要求更高的收益，这一构想也可能可行——毕竟，即使每桶石油仅增加几美元的成本，也比油价波动更经济——周三油价 alone 就飙升了近8%，突破每桶90美元。
该文章的作者之一伊斯凡迪亚尔·巴塔曼格利吉表示，德黑兰可能比一些外界人士认为的更看重这一方案的经济潜力。“就伊朗关心本国经济状况而言，它有比强行征收霍尔木兹海峡过境费更宏大的目标，”他说道。例如，与美国的任何外交突破都可能导致制裁解除，或是伊朗石油出口恢复自由流通。
巴塔曼格利吉还指出，这种安排还能为德黑兰带来战略优势，“可以表明海峡不会回到战前状态，以此强调伊朗并未被击败，它在与美国的冲突中得以保留自身的自主权和实力”。
更广泛地说，一项由多国参与的海峡管理计划，可能开始解答海湾地区日益突出的一个问题：战后，各国将如何应对更自信的伊朗带来的挑战，并为最终实现和平奠定基础？
尽管如此，特朗普对伊朗的持续攻击意味着有意义的外交仍将搁置。即便达成稳定海峡的协议，也只能解决战争引发的新危机，远无法解决美国对伊朗核计划和导弹项目的担忧。
但戈尔茨坦表示，特朗普可供选择的方案太少，这可能意味着尽管存在诸多弊端，折中方案仍将不可避免。
“这将是所有折中方案中最痛苦的一个，因为我们作为一个国家，我们作为西方世界的主导大国，长期以来一直坚持航行自由是我们的核心原则之一，”他说道。
大多数现代总统早就会向美国盟友寻求伊朗问题的帮助，以此扩大外交施压。例如，欧洲曾是推动外交进程的关键力量，促成了奥巴马政府的伊核协议。欧洲拥有美国在1979年伊斯兰革命后中断的外交联系渠道。
但特朗普严重破坏了跨大西洋联盟，通过一系列关税和辱骂将长期盟友视为对手。他在发动一场欧洲盟友认为非法且不明智的战争前，并未与众多盟友磋商。同时他还指责他们未加入美军行动。
其结果是，处境艰难的欧洲领导人如今几乎没有动力帮助他。而北约盟友能做的也有限。例如，欧洲大国提出部署其重要的排雷资产到海峡，但前提是所有敌对行动都已结束。
但欧洲在中东的任何举措，都将面临与阿曼同样的障碍：这个超级大国的外交政策似乎随特朗普的情绪而变化，反复无常且令人困惑。
“要求欧洲协助实施一项已达成一致的战略是一回事，但目前并没有达成一致的战略。事实上，目前尚不清楚美国的战略是什么，”总部位于布鲁塞尔的美国德国马歇尔基金杰出研究员伊恩·莱瑟说道。
对美国动机的类似不信任也可能阻碍外交进程。
“我与德黑兰方面的相关人士交谈后发现，他们并未拒绝阿曼提出的这项提议，”巴塔曼格利吉说道。但他补充称，伊朗担心在美国仍在升级局势的情况下放弃对海峡的控制权。“伊朗可能会在某个时候让海峡恢复正常化，这符合他们的利益。他们可能会以某种区域合作形式来实现这一点，但他们要等到认为美国吸取了教训之后才会这么做。”
与阿曼一样，其他海湾国家和欧洲大国也将为特朗普无法结束战争付出巨大代价。如果华盛顿和德黑兰不能尽快摆脱这种自我强化的破坏性循环，其他国家将别无选择，只能出手相助。
Trump is stuck in Iran. Here’s one idea that could offer a way out
2026-07-30T04:01:25.312Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/politics/trump-iran-strait-of-hormuz-tolls
The US war in Iran is in desperate need of new thinking.
Despite new US strikes Wednesday following President Donald Trump’s f-bomb warning that Iran is due another “beating,” he has yet to show he can blast Tehran back to talks.
But diplomacy that he hailed as bringing historic peace to the Middle East also failed when a vaguely worded memorandum of understanding collapsed.
And his options for changing the equation — risking the lives of hundreds of US troops in a ground war or recognizing Tehran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz — are so unpalatable that the phrase “no good options” has become a cliche.
“We are really in a fix,” said Lyle Goldstein, director of Asia Engagement at the US-based Defense Priorities think tank.
The costs of the Iran war are not confined to the participants. The political and economic backlash is mounting in the Middle East and Europe — escalating pressure on outside parties to try to jolt diplomacy into life.
If the strait remains a no-go zone for most civilian ships, grave reverberations from the war will get worse, as global oil reserves erode, the prices of oil-based products like diesel and fertilizer spike, and a potential liquid natural gas shortage looms in Europe this winter. The emergence of Gulf states as luxury tourist and expatriate havens has been shattered by the war. Weakened European governments are being punished by war-related cost-of-living hikes.
In the US, the war is threatening to define Trump’s second term. A new CNN/SSRS poll released Wednesday showed public approval of his policies on Iran and gas prices at lower than 30%. Such numbers threaten to be disastrous for Republicans in November’s midterm elections and to repudiate the bargain Trump made with voters in 2024 to make life more affordable.
The art of diplomacy, when classically practiced, lies in opening space, offering incentives and spotting the moment when adversaries might be persuaded to step back.
As with many conflict situations, the eventual framework needed to quell fighting and open the way for talks on the most fundamental issues, like Iran’s nuclear program, is possible to visualize. Here, it might involve a compromise wherein the United States could avoid admitting it suffered a strategic defeat through Iran’s effective control of the strait, and Iran could argue it preserved its main takeaway from a war that ravaged its leaders and military.
But building a political and diplomatic path to that point will be treacherous. And the process to deescalation would require a plan for future management of the strait and likely the involvement of outside powers to guarantee the safety of civilian maritime traffic.
At a barren diplomatic moment, there are two flickers of hope.
One is an emerging concept for an international institution under which Gulf nations, including Iran, would eventually jointly manage and monetize the trade, but in such a way that would stabilize global oil prices. Ironically, the way forward might be hiding in plain sight in the scrapped MOU, which called on Iran and Oman to “define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz, in discussions with other Persian Gulf Littoral States.”
The other eventual opening might also come from outside the US. A plan reported this week for an international conference hosted by Britain to discuss safeguarding ships in the strait did not materialize. But the general idea of broadening diplomacy will likely return, not least because third-party nations, especially those in Europe and East Asia, have a lot to lose from the status quo.
The only publicly announced diplomacy in recent days has been discussions at the deputy foreign ministry level between Iran and Oman, which also borders the strait, about potential ways to manage sea traffic if it is reopened.
CNN reported this week that Oman has resisted the imposition of transit fees for oil tankers in the strait, favored by Tehran, on the grounds that international law stipulates free and safe passage through straits used for international navigation. But the government is touting a compromise that envisages a fee for “maritime services” that may provide a workaround.
The idea of a “Hormuz fee” is examined in an article published by the London-based think tank Bourse and Bazaar Foundation. The idea is not for a toll for shipping to use the strait, but for a contribution to the management of the waterway by states with Persian Gulf shorelines. One model would be similar arrangements in the Strait of Malacca, which connects the Indian Ocean with the Pacific Ocean, and involve Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia.
The article also cites fees charged by the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands to model the possible scope of revenues. There, the largest tankers are liable for a “sustainability” fee of around $0.08 for each gross metric ton of cargo. If a similar charge was levied in the Persian Gulf, the new institutional body would make around $26 million a year, the authors calculate. The idea might be workable, even if Iran demanded far higher returns since even the addition of a couple of dollars per barrel of oil would be economically preferable to the volatility in oil prices — which spiked nearly 8.0% Wednesday alone to above $90 a barrel.
Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, one of the authors of the article, said Tehran may be more flexible about the monetary potential of such a scheme than some outsiders believe. “To the extent that Iran cares about its economic situation, there are much bigger goals than trying to impose a fee in the Strait of Hormuz,” he said. Any diplomatic opening with the US could result in the lifting of sanctions, for instance, or the free flow of Iranian oil exports.
Batmanghelidj also suggested the arrangement could offer Tehran a strategic boost and “make the point that the strait is not going to go back to the status it had before the war, as a way of underlining that it was not defeated, that it was able to preserve its agency and its power through the conflict with the US.”
More broadly, a multinational plan for managing the strait could begin to answer a growing question in the Gulf region: How will states answer the challenge posed by a more confident Iran after the war and shore up any eventual peace?
Still, Trump’s return to attacking Iran means meaningful diplomacy will remain on hold. And even a deal to stabilize the strait would only address a new crisis thrown up by the war while not come near meeting US concerns over Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.
But Goldstein said Trump’s paucity of options may mean a compromise becomes inevitable despite its considerable downsides.
“This is going to be the most painful of all compromises precisely because we as a nation, we in the West, as the leading powers of the world have for a very, very long time insisted that freedom of navigation was one of our signature principles,” he said.
Most modern presidents would have turned to US allies for help on Iran already as a way of broadening diplomatic pressure. Europe, for instance, was a vital driver of diplomacy that led to the Obama administration’s nuclear deal. It has diplomatic links that the US severed after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
But Trump has deeply damaged the transatlantic alliance, treating longtime allies like adversaries with his barrages of tariffs and insults. He refused to consult many US allies before launching a war that they regarded as illegal and unwise. But he also berated them for not joining US military action.
The result is that political weak European leaders have little incentive to help him now. And there’s a limit to what NATO allies can do. Offers by European powers to deploy their significant mine-clearance assets to the strait, for instance, have been conditioned on an end to all hostilities.
But any European initiative in the Middle East would also come up against the same impediment as Oman’s — a fickle and confusing diplomatic strategy from a superpower whose foreign policy seems to change with Trump’s moods.
“It’s one thing to ask Europe to help with an agreed strategy, but there is no agreed strategy. Indeed, it’s not clear what American strategy is at this point,” said Ian Lesser, a distinguished fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States who is based in Brussels.
Similar mistrust over American motives could also hamper diplomacy.
“My conversations with stakeholders in Tehran suggest that they’re not rejecting this proposal that Oman has brought forward,” Batmanghelidj said. But he added that Iran was concerned about giving up control of the strait while the US was still escalating. “Iran probably will allow the strait to normalize at some point. It’s in their interest to do so. They’ll probably do so in some regional format, but they are not going to do it until they think the Americans learned their lesson.”
Like Oman, the other Gulf States and European powers face a huge price for Trump’s inability to end his war. If Washington and Tehran can’t escape their self-reinforcing destructive cycle soon, others will have no choice but to help them.