The 20% toll on the Strait of Hormuz was announced on Monday and abolished on Tuesday — a policy with the lifespan of a mayfly. That's the event, and it's genuinely all you need. What we're here for is how fast the obituary got rewritten as a birth announcement. * Monday's version, per Al Jazeera's headline: “Trump says US will become 'guardian' of Strait of Hormuz and collect tolls.” A guardian with a card reader. The market reviewed the plan overnight — Brent crude jumped to a one-month high above $86 — and, apparently, so did the Gulf capitals, by phone. * Tuesday, Fox News' live blog, one entry: “Trump backs away from Strait of Hormuz fee.” Honest words. Backing away is exactly what happened. * Then the very next update: “Trump touts Gulf partners investing 'billions' in US after backing away from Strait of Hormuz fees.” One scroll. That's how long the retreat stayed a retreat before it became revenue. * About those 'billions.' Here's the actual announcement, from Trump's own post: “Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States.” Read it slowly. The fee being replaced existed for one day. The deals replacing it don't exist yet — no country named, no amount given, no paperwork released. The word 'billions' wears quotation marks in that headline because its only source is the man executing the U-turn, who also promised the investments would be “MASSIVE” and produce “additional millions of High Paying AMERICAN Jobs.” Capitalization his. * Now the same story, worded by newsrooms that let a climbdown be a climbdown. NPR: “Trump scraps his Hormuz shipping charge idea but presses ahead with an Iran blockade.” Idea. On Monday it was national policy; by Tuesday NPR had refiled it where it now lives. Bloomberg: “Trump Backs Off 20% Fee For Strait of Hormuz Shipments.” Scraps, backs off — verbs that price the reversal at face value. * Every administration reverses itself sometimes; that part is normal government. The tell is what your news source does in the very next breath. When the toll booth gets demolished after a day and the coverage immediately unveils a monument to the invisible money that replaced it, you're not reading a news feed anymore. You're reading the gift shop.