On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump issued an extraordinary public threat to militarily destroy Oman if the sultanate chooses to cooperate with Iran on a ship transit fee scheme for the Strait of Hormuz, a proposal Iran is pushing as part of any potential negotiated settlement to end the ongoing US-Israeli war against the Islamic Republic.
In his remarks, Trump asserted unchallenged open access to the strategic waterway, declaring, “The strait is going to be open to everybody. Nobody is going to control it…it’s international waters.” He doubled down on his aggression, adding, “Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow them up.”
The geographic and legal position of Oman makes its cooperation a critical component of any Iranian plan to implement a transit fee. Alongside Iran, Oman is the only country that holds territorial waters spanning the narrow strait, a critical chokepoint for global oil and maritime trade. At its narrowest point, the Strait of Hormuz measures just 21 nautical miles across, and under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), coastal nations are permitted to claim territorial rights up to 12 nautical miles from their coasts. While UNCLOS explicitly bars nations bordering international straits from restricting transit or charging general tolls, legal experts interviewed by Middle East Eye note that Iran could structure charges as service or piloting fees – a workaround that would require Oman’s cooperation to move forward.
Earlier this month, Iranian ambassador to France Mohammad Amin-Nejad told Bloomberg that Tehran and Muscat were already developing a framework to advance such a plan as part of talks to end the war. Notably, the US is not a signatory to UNCLOS, despite frequently referencing international law of the sea norms to advance its own regional interests.
Oman has a long-standing reputation as one of the Persian Gulf region’s most reliable neutral mediators, a role that has put it directly at odds with the Trump administration’s war agenda. Before the June 2025 joint US-Israeli attack on Iran, Oman served as the primary backchannel interlocutor between Washington and Tehran, with negotiations scheduled to take place in Muscat that were ultimately overtaken by the offensive. Muscat also made a last-ditch mediation effort ahead of the February 28 US-Israeli strike that launched the full-scale war.
Unlike more vocal Gulf powers including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, Oman has long favored quiet diplomacy – but its leadership has broken with that tradition to openly criticize the conflict. On the eve of the initial attack, Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Albusaidi made an urgent public appeal on CBS News for additional time for diplomatic talks to proceed. In March, Albusaidi penned a high-profile op-ed in *The Economist* warning that the US was putting its long-term regional standing at grave risk by continuing the war alongside Israel, writing bluntly that “America has lost control of its own foreign policy.” He later took to social media to refute the Trump administration’s core justification for the war, which frames Iran as an imminent threat to US and allied interests. “Whatever your view of Iran, this war is not of their making,” Albusaidi wrote.
Multiple current and former US officials have confirmed to Middle East Eye that the Trump administration has grown increasingly frustrated with Oman’s public anti-war messaging for months. This friction comes amid a shift in alignment among other Gulf powers: Middle East Eye was the first outlet to reveal that Saudi Arabia granted the US expanded military access, basing rights, and overflight permissions at the height of the conflict, a move later confirmed by Reuters and other outlets that also reported Saudi and UAE participation in US strikes against Iran.
While the US does not maintain permanent military bases in Oman as it does in Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, the US Navy holds a long-standing agreement for regular access to Omani infrastructure, specifically the strategic Port of Duqm on Oman’s southern coast. In recent weeks, Oman has stepped back from its mediation efforts, ceding public roles to Qatar, which leverages significant financial resources, and Pakistan, which brings regional military influence to the negotiating table.
The current tension between Washington and Muscat cuts against centuries of shared history and diplomatic ties. Oman has maintained balanced, open relations with both the US and Iran for decades, a unique regional position rooted in its long history as an independent maritime power. Unlike neighboring Gulf states such as the UAE and Qatar, which only gained independence in 1971, the Sultanate of Oman is a centuries-old state that once controlled a vast maritime empire stretching across the Indian Ocean to the east coast of Africa. Oman also shares the oldest continuous diplomatic and trade relationship with the US of any Gulf state, with formal ties dating back to 1790.
Like many other Gulf nations, Oman has also cultivated economic ties to the Trump family: the Trump Organization, led by the president’s adult children, holds a franchise agreement for a luxury hotel and golf course currently under development in the sultanate.