Trump Threatens Oman Over Strait of Hormuz Talks and Reveals IRGC Backchannel

The remarks therefore placed two diplomatic tracks in direct tension. Oman’s talks could produce a route arrangement that gives Iran a significant role in controlling ships entering the Gulf, while the United States has insisted on its own control of the waterway and has pursued a separate deal with Tehran.

The backchannel and Trump’s negotiating posture

Trump’s disclosure of a U.S. backchannel to the IRGC suggested that Washington was communicating directly with a powerful Iranian security institution while Oman pursued its intermediary role. The available reporting does not establish the channel’s personnel, format or negotiating authority, so its precise scope remains unclear.

Trump also said he was not working under a fixed timetable. His demand that Iran “put up the white flag of surrender” indicated that he was describing negotiations in highly coercive terms rather than signaling an imminent compromise.

Nuclear nonproliferation versus control of Hormuz

Trump has presented preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon as the central U.S. objective, while separately saying that the United States could declare the Strait of Hormuz U.S. territory after defeating Iran. He said he would do so “pretty soon”; Iran rejected the claim as legally and politically untenable.

Those positions point to two different stated goals. The first is a security objective focused on Iran’s nuclear capability. The second is a sweeping claim over a strategic international waterway, through which a fifth of global oil and gas shipments passed before the crisis. The supplied reporting does not show that the proposed Iran-Oman route agreement would transfer sovereignty over the strait to either country; it describes a negotiated shipping corridor and arrangements for managing traffic.

What Iran and Oman were negotiating

Iran and Oman said they had agreed on the geographic coordinates of a proposed commercial shipping route and were preparing a joint announcement. Later reporting described the route as temporary and said it could pass through Iranian territorial waters, giving Tehran control over inbound traffic.

Iranian accounts also said the arrangement would bar U.S. and Israeli vessels from using the route and could impose penalties on violators. Those details came from Iranian state-linked reporting and were not presented as an agreed position by Washington.

The route agreement alone was not enough, in Tehran’s view, to fully reopen Hormuz. Iranian officials said the United States would first need to lift its naval blockade and sanctions, withdraw military forces from the region, halt attacks, release frozen assets and provide compensation for war damage. Iran also denied holding direct negotiations with Washington unless its conditions were met, saying messages were being passed through intermediaries.

Why Oman’s role matters

Oman’s importance goes beyond geography. The country borders the southern side of the Strait of Hormuz and has long served as a diplomatic intermediary between Washington and Tehran. Its position gives it both a practical role in any shipping arrangement and a channel for relaying messages between governments that say they are not negotiating directly.

That makes Trump’s threat especially consequential. A military warning against Oman risks undermining the intermediary best placed to communicate with both sides, while also threatening a country involved in the proposed route agreement. It could make a negotiated reopening harder even as Washington, Tehran and Muscat pursue overlapping but conflicting arrangements.

The broader stakes are global. The strait is a critical energy chokepoint, and reporting has put the share of global oil and gas shipments moving through it at roughly one-fifth. Whether traffic resumes depends not only on the technical route Iran and Oman have been discussing, but also on unresolved U.S.-Iran disputes over sanctions, military pressure, compensation and who controls access to the waterway.