{"id":238222,"date":"2026-08-06T10:05:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T10:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/238222\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T10:05:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T10:05:32","slug":"trump-will-sell-a-hormuz-deal-as-a-success-it-barely-takes-him-back-to-where-he-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/238222\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump will sell a Hormuz deal as a success. It barely takes him back to where he started"},"content":{"rendered":"

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More than five months since Donald Trump<\/a> and Israel <\/a>launched their war on Iran,<\/a> the US<\/a> president is struggling to solve the biggest problem the conflict helped create: the militarisation of the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

After a cycle of failed negotiations and military strikes<\/a>, Washington<\/a> and Tehran<\/a> cannot agree on whether negotiations are taking place at all. All the while, continued attacks on ships in the waterway are deepening chaos in the global economy and increasing the price of energy. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey are going on right now,\u201d said Trump on Monday, hours after Tehran said that no such talks were happening. <\/p>\n

Instead, Iranian officials have said they are negotiating specifically with Oman<\/a> over Hormuz. The extent of US involvement in these talks is unclear, but experts tell The Independent Trump is likely to seize the credit for any impending deal either way. <\/p>\n

\u201cOman will not act alone and independently. Whilst they hold the pen on this issue, they will be coordinating with other Gulf partners and the US,\u201d said Dr Neil Quilliam, professor on the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House. <\/p>\n

The US, he says, may end up agreeing a settlement under which Iran<\/a> is paid \u201cservice\u201d fees which are disguised as environmental payments. <\/p>\n

\"VesselsVessels in the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, on Monday (Reuters)<\/p>\n

While Trump would likely claim credit for a deal and sell it as a success for Washington<\/a>, it would ultimately be an embarrassment. The White House has repeatedly rejected Tehran\u2019s demand that ships pay a toll to cross through the Strait. <\/p>\n

Optimism in Washington<\/p>\n

There are growing signs that Washington will claim responsibility for a deal to open the Strait, after senior members of the Trump administration suggested it was days away. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been progress made in those talks [between Iran and Oman], but not finality yet. We\u2019re hoping that will happen very shortly,\u201d US secretary of state Rubio told reporters on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also struck an optimistic tone, claiming a deal on reopening the Strait could be reached on Wednesday or Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no trust between Iran and the US at present. Given that Iran and Oman are the two parties to managing Hormuz, it makes perfect sense for them to work through the issues,\u201d says Dr Quilliam. \u201cBut Oman needs the backing of its regional partners and the US.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"USUS Secretary of State Marco Rubio (left) and US Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent (right) have stated their optimism that a deal is close (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n

Last week, Oman submitted a proposal to Iran envisaging regional management of the Strait and only voluntary fees for transit, rather than Tehran\u2019s vision of maintaining control of the waterway and charging for its use. <\/p>\n

The proposal was for a joint regional mechanism to manage the strait with voluntary fees to help fund the cost of managing navigation, environmental protection, search and rescue and other services.<\/p>\n

But a look at Tehran\u2019s latest demands casts some doubt over the US optimism of an imminent \u2013 and lasting \u2013 deal. <\/p>\n

Tehran\u2019s demands hinder deal progress<\/p>\n

During talks with Oman, Tehran has put forward a proposal that would give Iran full control over all inbound shipping, a senior Iranian official told Reuters.<\/p>\n

Outbound shipping would follow a route between Iran and Oman, with exit clearance granted through Oman after notifying Iran.<\/p>\n

Tehran is \u201cunlikely to change its position\u201d from this, the source told the news agency. <\/p>\n

But experts suggest this another sign that Iran wants to create leverage in peace talks \u2013 and such a demand would be unacceptable to Washington. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe US will not accept any post-war<\/a> arrangement that would actually give Tehran more control over shipping in the region,\u201d says professor Basil Germond, a professor of international security at Lancaster University and an expert in maritime affairs.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe US president has struggled to bring the five month war to a lasting close (AP)<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s negotiations with Oman are the regime\u2019s latest attempt to build relationships with regional countries and drive a wedge between them and the US, according to Maziyar Ghiabi, the director for the Centre of Persian And Iranian Studies at the University of Exeter. <\/p>\n

\u201cBy building a long-term friendship and collaboration with Oman, Iran and its diplomatic team is trying to show that security and economic order will be beneficial to countries that engage with them at the expense of Washington,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u2018US may accept Iran\u2019s demand for fees to transit Hormuz\u2019<\/p>\n

Washington could, experts believe, agree to a deal negotiated between Iran and Oman. <\/p>\n

A deal which could be acceptable to the US would be one which results in paid \u201cservice\u201d fees being paid to Iran, under the guise of \u201cenvironmental fees\u201d, Dr Quilliam says. <\/p>\n

This would ultimately be a win for Iran, who for months have been demanding a toll for passage through the Strait of Hormuz. For the US, it could only be seen as a concession. <\/p>\n

\"BeforeBefore the war, around one fifth of the world’s oil flowed through the strait (PA Graphics) (PA Graphics)<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s central concern is getting Hormuz open again, Dr Quilliam says. \u201cEven with \u2018environmental service fees\u2019 he will claim it is a victory, and add that he has destroyed Iran\u2019s nuclear programme, its navy and its airforce and so on.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe just needs the Gulf Arab states to sign up and live with the service fees. And given the alternative is a continuous war of attrition, this looks increasingly likely now,\u201d he adds. <\/p>\n

Prof Ghiabi says Trump, who has \u201cattempted to play the role of kingmaker in diplomacy\u201d, may see the ongoing negotiations as a way out from the quagmire in Iran. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe US and much of the world need a steady flow of oil resources from that region, and we have reached the point where whatever arrangement guarantees that may be somehow reluctantly welcomed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[5084,102,101,11155],"class_list":["post-238222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-strait-of-hormuz","tag-horizontal","tag-hormuz","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-summit"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117048005685013754","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}