🇺🇸🇮🇷🇩🇰 U.S. can cut a deal to open Hormuz, or it can wait 428 years, the way the Baltic did. Denmark started charging every ship through the gap with Sweden in 1429. The water is 4 km wide. Kronborg's cannons were the late fee. Captains named their own cargo value, and if th

🇺🇸🇮🇷🇩🇰 U.S. can cut a deal to open Hormuz, or it can wait 428 years, the way the Baltic did. Denmark started charging every ship through the gap with Sweden in 1429. The water is 4 km wide. Kronborg's cannons were the late fee. Captains named their own cargo value, and if they lowballed it, Denmark could buy the whole load at that price. It ran until 1857, when the big powers paid Copenhagen to kill the toll for good. America paid $393,000 on its own, for passage in perpetuity. The strait never closed again. Commercial ships go through free, warships pass under the normal rules, and a bridge went up in 2000 without putting the fee back. The cannons are a museum. Hormuz is the same door, except nobody has written the check, and the guns are still live. Source: Denmark National History website / Writer: Lucas