Hormuz has acquired more language, not a protocol.

The paper's June 1 account of Hormuz fee language without public text argued that toll and sovereignty claims remain words until a rule appears. Its companion on the EIA Hormuz baseline explained why the words matter: this strait normally carries an enormous share of the world's oil trade. Tuesday leaves the same distinction in place.

RTHK, carrying AFP material, reported that Iran's Fars news agency denied a no-tolls clause and that lawmaker Alireza Salimi said management, sovereignty, and administrative fees would soon go before parliament. [1] SBS carried the same dispute inside its account of the returned U.S. framework and Iran's distrust of Washington. [2]

That is closer to a legislative path than ordinary saber-rattling. It is not a passage regime. There is no public fee table, routing instruction, form, exemption rule, insurer circular, or carrier notice in the available record. The distinction is dull only until a shipowner, charterer, or insurer has to decide whether a tanker should move.

AP supplies the scale. It reported that the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed, that about 20 percent of the world's oil normally passes through it, and that only 89 ships crossed from March 1 to March 15 against the prewar norm of 100 to 135 passages a day. [3]

That number disciplines the rhetoric. A threat to keep Hormuz closed is not the same as a current ship count. A claim about administrative fees is not the same as a tariff. A denial of a no-tolls clause is not a toll schedule. Markets can trade adjectives for a day; shipping eventually needs instructions.

The divergence is familiar. Mainstream coverage splits diplomacy, oil prices, and shipping into separate desks. Online discourse collapses them into proof of a shakedown or proof that reopening was fake. The useful middle is more prosaic. If Iran wants money, permission, or sovereignty recognition at the chokepoint, the evidence should be visible as paperwork and behavior.

Until then, Hormuz remains a fee-and-threat story. It is not yet a public protocol.

-- HENDRIK VAN DER BERG, Brussels