United States

Most of the European defense spending increase that we’ve seen over the last couple of years is primarily debt financed...A lot of the capital that is actually going into European defense investment is American."

The U.S. imposing a fee would be "opening a very dangerous Pandora's Box," Katinas said, "because in other parts of the world, other countries will decide they want to impose tolls as well. So, we are totally undermining international maritime law, which is already in a fragile situation."

I don't think that people should jump to the conclusion that we're headed to the same sort of hostilities that we saw earlier this year...Both sides in this regard don't want a return to full-scale war. They want to find another route instead. The problem is that they both have mutually, frankly contradictory aims. The United States wants to have the Strait of Hormuz opened completely free of tolls from the Iranian regime. The Iranians are making it clear that as far as they're concerned, the memorandum of understanding that was signed, which was, you know, fairly vague when it comes to the commitments from both sides, means that they have control."