Iran is moving to charge the world for passing through the Strait of Hormuz. The last time the United States faced something similar, Founding Father and America’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, went to war to stop it.
In 1801, Jefferson refused to pay tribute to the Barbary States — regimes that taxed maritime passage through coercion, piracy, and hostage-taking. Rather than accept extortion as the cost of commerce, the United States chose confrontation. That decision helped establish a principle that has underwritten global trade ever since: The seas are not for sale.
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