An emerging deal could cement Iran’s control of Hormuz

Iran and Oman are closing in on an agreement to reopen shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iranian and American officials, but if the accord goes into effect, it could come at a high price — ratifying Tehran’s control over what, before the war, was an open, international waterway.

As described by officials familiar with the emerging accord, vessels heading into the Arabian Gulf will transit a channel controlled by Iran and close to its coast. Ships leaving the Gulf will travel on a channel near Oman.

Iranian officials say that while there will be no tolls charged, the agreement includes a “service fee” to cover the environmental impact of the shipping, security for the cargo ships and tankers and staffing. Revenues would be divided equally between Iran and Oman, two Iranian officials said.

But a U.S. official familiar with the negotiations said Monday that the Iranian account was “not accurate,” and said that any “temporary” routes established through the strait would not involve approvals or permissions by Iran, and would involve no tolls.

For President Donald Trump, the deal, if it happened, could address his most urgent political problem, allowing ships to flow again. For their part, Iranian officials said the strait would remain closed, despite any agreement, until the U.S. lifts its naval blockade against Iranian ports in the Gulf and both countries return to the 14-point plan laid out in the Islamabad memorandum of understanding.

The U.S. could ease the market pressure even further, some officials said, if it decided to issue exemptions on sanctions against Iran so it could legally sell and deliver oil.

But if, ultimately, Iran asserts continued control over the passageway, the opening might come with a geopolitical cost. Iranian officials say they are designing the accord to ratify their capacity to control the strait and therefore retain strategic leverage that they did not employ before the war.

Such restrictions would directly violate the goal set by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said repeatedly in recent months that the strait must return to the kind of open waterway that it was before the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28.

“If we create a precedent in the Middle East where a nation state can decide that they are going to control an international waterway,” he said recently at a meeting of Southeast Asian officials, “charge a toll and if you don’t pay them blow up your ships, we have created a very dangerous precedent, which will repeat itself in other parts of the world.”

“What is at stake here is not simply the issue of what is happening in the Straits of Hormuz, it’s a very fundamental principle about freedom of navigation,’’ Rubio said, adding that “the rules which have underpinned 150 years of international trade and commerce are also threatened, and that cannot be allowed to happen.”

Trump has said little about the emerging agreement, which was part of the return to negotiations that he said led him to call off a broad new attack on Iran over the weekend. The agreement gives Iran and Oman 60 days to negotiate the opening of the strait, but envisions that during that time the United States and Iran will resume discussions of the future of Iran’s stockpile of 11 tons of enriched uranium, including about a half-ton of fuel that is now near bomb-grade.

The United States is demanding that the fuel be diluted, so that it is not easily converted for use in weapons, and ultimately shipped to the United States or another nation where it can be disposed of or used in nuclear power plants.

A plan signed in mid-June by Vice President JD Vance and, separately, by Trump, led both men to declare enthusiastically that a nuclear accord would be negotiated in 60 days. But that deadline would run out in two weeks, and officials now concede that any negotiations, if they get started, will extend far into the fall, and perhaps beyond. In private comments, some officials doubt there will be a nuclear accord, and that Trump may simply declare, as he has suggested in the past, that Iran’s stockpiles should remain buried under the rubble created after an air attack on three nuclear facilities in June 2025.

But getting the strait reopened is vital for Trump politically. And so despite Rubio’s statements, the administration appears to be preparing the world for a reopening in which Iran exerts daily control over traffic.

“You’ll find out today or tomorrow,” Trump said of the emerging agreement at the White House on Monday. “They’re going to go quickly one way or the other. It’s not very complex.”

The strait, he predicted, could be open “literally by tomorrow,” a claim he has made many times in the past few months. “The first phase is the opening of the straits. The second phase will be the denuclearization,” he said.

Yet inside the Pentagon, some senior officials appear skeptical of the emerging Omani-Iranian arrangement, according to current and former officials who have been briefed on the concerns. Some worry that it amounts to capitulation to the Iranians. They note that on the route from the Gulf through the strait via Oman’s waters, there are still so many mines that ships would need to coordinate with Iran to navigate it safely.

Some Iranian officials even voiced skepticism about whether or not the agreement would function as intended and remove the risk of another wave of U.S. attacks.

United States Central Command has been guiding ships through that route, but they are also under Iranian missile threat. Trump has twice in two weeks called off a plan by Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of Central Command, for a short, intense bombardment of the Iranian sites where those attacks originate and other military targets. But Trump has made no secret of his intense desire to reopen traffic in the strait, even if that means some kind of fee structure and some level of Iranian control.

Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to Iran’s lead negotiator, told state television Monday night that Iran and Oman have been negotiating for a resolution on how to manage the strait. He said the negotiations are separate from the war with the United States.

Iran has said that the U.S. violated the peace plan when it directed ships to go from the southern coast of the Strait near Oman. The language in the agreement was vague on who controls the Strait. But then Iran also violated that plan and opened fire on ships that were transiting the Gulf without its permission.

Ali Vaez, deputy Middle East program director for the International Crisis Group, said Iran is adamant about keeping its leverage over the strait because it sees it as its only achievement from the war, and the deal with Oman will put Iran in a better place than it was before the current round of fighting.

“Whatever solution leaves Iran in control of the strait will be a very tough sell for Trump, but there is also no military solution to remove Iran’s control of the strait,” Vaez said. “Trump’s options are between an unwinnable war and an unpalatable peace.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.