President Trump on Tuesday scrapped the 20 percent toll on Strait of Hormuz cargo he had ordered a day earlier, replacing it with promised "massive" trade and investment deals from Gulf allies as U.S. and Iranian forces exchanged fire for a fourth straight day.

The Truth Social reversal, posted hours before U.S. Central Command struck dozens of Iranian military sites in a seven-hour barrage, killed off the first concrete revenue measure of the four-month U.S.-Iran war and exposed the political limits of a conflict that has choked Hormuz shipping to a near standstill.

The about-face

Monday's plan, announced as the U.S. Navy blockade of Iranian ports resumed at 4 p.m. Eastern, required every vessel transiting Hormuz — including U.S. allies — to pay a 20 percent "reimbursement fee." By Tuesday afternoon, Trump wrote that he would "replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States." He said later that "numerous calls from Gulf leaders" prompted the switch. "I don't like the concept of a fee, but at the same time, it's not fair that we're protecting this Strait for the entire world," Trump said.

The dropped plan clashed with his own administration. Secretary of State Marco Rubio last month condemned an Iranian effort to charge Hormuz shipping fees, saying "No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway."

The escalation

Trump also told Fox News's Trey Yingst that U.S. strikes would soon move to civilian infrastructure. "Next week it gets really bad for them," Trump said. "We're going to knock out all their power plants. We're going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate." U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk warned in April, when Trump last floated the threat, that deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

Central Command said Tuesday's seven-hour campaign hit dozens of Iranian missile, drone and coastal-defense sites. Iran's Health Ministry said more than 260 people were injured overnight; Iran's army reported seven personnel killed at a barracks in the country's southeast. It was the fourth consecutive night of American strikes.

The retaliation

Jordan's military intercepted three Iranian ballistic missiles at dawn Wednesday. Kuwait reported destroying 33 drones, five cruise missiles and one ballistic missile, and said a naval vessel was struck, wounding four service members. Bahrain sounded air-raid sirens. The Treasury Department separately froze more than $130 million in digital assets held by the Central Bank of Iran.

The counterpoint

Iran rejected the pressure. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Trump's blockade decision "has, in a way, dismantled" the June memorandum of understanding, and told state television Tehran would not return to talks under duress. Rosemary Kelanic of Defense Priorities was equally blunt: "The MOU is completely dead," she told the BBC.

Oil prices jumped nearly 10 percent Monday, the biggest one-day move in six years, and shipping data show Hormuz traffic at a two-month low. Trump said the American strike campaign would continue Wednesday and Thursday nights before shifting to Iranian bridges and power plants.