Rubio warns ship transit fees in Hormuz would 'spread like contagion' to other waterways US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that if Iran started charging ships to transit the Strait of Hormuz such a move could spread to other waterways and risk "total chaos". "International waterways do not belong to any nation state. This is a foundational principle in the world today, without which the world would be in total chaos," he told a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting in Bahrain.