WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed Thursday that Oman won’t be going along with Iran’s scheme to toll the Strait of Hormuz — after a chilling threat from President Trump.
Bessent told reporters that he spoke personally with an official from Oman who pledged not to collect fees for passage through the key waterway. The commitment follows Trump’s warning on Wednesday that Oman must “behave just like everybody else, or we will have to blow them up.”
The jaw-dropping threat came after Trump was pressed on tensions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz — the critical oil-shipping chokepoint connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman.
Tehran in its latest draft proposal for an agreement with the US suggested that Iran and Oman “manage” the strait once it is reopened — given that the two countries straddle the oil chokepoint.
A reporter asked Bessent point-blank whether White House officials were “making plans for a new war with Oman again.”
“I think the President wanted to punctuate freedom of navigation in the strait,” Bessent said.
He further stated he’d held a call earlier Thursday with the Omani ambassador to the US, who “assured me that there were no plans for tolling the strait.”
The ambassador, according to Bessent, tried to cool tensions by emphasizing the longtime relationship between the two countries.
“Our countries have had 200 years of good relations; he wants to have another 200 more,” Bessent recounted.
But Bessent made clear the Trump administration would not tolerate any move threatening shipping through the strategic waterway.
“I told him that this was a nonstarter,” Bessent said, adding that Oman “did not want to risk either the Omani individuals or Omani financial institutions getting sanctioned.”
A US agreement proposal reported Thursday made no mention of Oman or Iran managing the strait, but held that Tehran would be banned from charging a toll to access the waterway.
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