The Trump administration has threatened Oman with sanctions and potential military strikes, pressing the small Persian Gulf sultanate to sever diplomatic ties with Iran as the three-month-old U.S.-Iran war grinds on. Washington’s pressure campaign targets a country that has served for decades as a trusted back-channel mediator between Washington and Tehran — and whose neutrality, once an asset to both sides, has become a source of deepening American suspicion.
The confrontation escalated after a U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that Oman was planning to join Iran in tolling vessels through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, according to U.S. and Arab officials. President Trump said during a cabinet meeting last Wednesday that he might order airstrikes on Oman if it went along with Iran’s shipping-toll plan, even though Muscat has consistently denied any such intention. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also threatened the sultanate with sanctions on social media.
“Oman stands ready to work with the United States and all responsible partners to promote stability, deter disruption, and safeguard our shared strategic interests,” Omani Information Minister Abdulla Al-Harrasi said in response to U.S. pressure to sever links with Iran.
The roots of Washington’s distrust predate the tolling allegation, according to U.S. officials. A day before the first U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran, Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, appeared on U.S. television to claim that an agreement on nuclear issues to avoid a conflict was “within our reach, if we just allow diplomacy the space it needs to get there.” No agreement was that close, U.S. officials said, noting that Iran had not made a serious offer to limit its nuclear work. Since then, the Trump administration has tried to sideline Oman from any diplomatic process.
Oman’s position has also drawn criticism from American allies in the region. The sultanate was the only Persian Gulf country that refused to sign an Emirati-led U.N. statement condemning Iran’s move to charge tolls in Hormuz. When Iranian drones struck Omani ports during the war, Oman acknowledged the event but did not name Tehran as responsible. Sultan Haitham was the only Gulf leader to congratulate Mojtaba Khamenei on his appointment as Iran’s new supreme leader after the death of his father, Ali Khamenei, in the opening salvos of the conflict.
Throughout the war, Oman has walked a line between the U.S., its longtime ally, and Iran, its powerful neighbor across the strait. At the conflict’s start, officials in Oman raced to establish a back channel with Tehran that, according to Arab officials, helped Gulf states reopen flight corridors — a diplomatic coup enabled by Muscat’s impartiality. Omani officials said not condemning Iran was in line with Omani diplomatic tradition and intended to help end the war.
Today, Oman sees Iran’s toll demand as a negotiating tool, particularly to secure the release of billions of dollars in funds frozen by U.S. and international sanctions, one official said. The country remains committed to the free flow of commerce and energy through the strait, Al-Harrasi said. “Any threat to freedom of navigation in these waters would harm the interests of the entire international community, including the United States.”
Omani officials have been shocked by the sudden U.S. hostility and are working to determine how to respond, according to Arab officials. One approach under consideration is a public-relations offensive, including working with the United Nations to persuade Iran to allow ships carrying fertilizer ingredients to pass safely as a gesture to African nations facing a food crisis.
Since the war started, Oman has assisted ships, including from the U.S., by providing navigational guidance, search and rescue, and medical assistance to ship crews, according to a person familiar with the matter. Omani territory was used to provide some logistical supplies to the U.S. military at the war’s start, but the assistance was small, a U.S. official said.
Oman’s engagement with Iran has ruffled feathers not just with the U.S. but with American allies in the region, notably the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia, which also see their neighbor as too closely aligned with Tehran, Arab officials said. The Trump administration’s threat “has highlighted perceptions in some American circles that Oman is sympathetic to Iran,” said Sanam Vakil, a Middle East director at Chatham House, a U.K. think tank.
The U.S. criticism has exposed Oman’s lack of access to American power circles. A smaller oil producer and less affluent country than most of its Persian Gulf peers, Muscat lacks the Beltway influence that comes with big business and military contracts. Oman does not host a U.S. military base, unlike the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.
Oman has had diplomatic ties with the U.S. for almost 200 years — one of the oldest relationships Washington has with an Arab nation. The sultanate also has centuries-old ties with Iran. Omanis belong to the Ibadite sect, an early secession from mainstream Islam known for its moderate and egalitarian tendencies, distinguishing them from their Arab Sunni neighbors. Oman hosted negotiations to end the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, then facilitated back-channel communications between Tehran and the Obama administration that produced the 2015 pact to limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Trump withdrew from that deal during his first term.
More recently, Oman mediated two rounds of nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington, both interrupted by Israeli and American strikes on Iran. Despite the escalating pressure, U.S. officials said there is no genuine plan to attack Oman for its support of Iran, despite Trump’s remark at last week’s cabinet meeting. Bessent said Oman’s ambassador to Washington, Talal Alrahbi, had assured him that the Gulf state has “no plans for tolling.”