Iran and Oman discuss Strait of Hormuz ship payment system, despite US warning | Today’s news
Iran is quietly negotiating with the Gulf state of Oman a plan to charge vessels to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a move that puts Tehran in direct conflict with US President Donald Trump, even as both sides say they are working towards a diplomatic solution, according to a New York Times report.
A plan taking shape in the Strait of Hormuz
Behind the public presentation of cease-fire statements and diplomatic overtures, Iran and Oman have been discussing something much more concrete: a system that would generate revenue from one of the busiest and most frequent sea lanes in the heartland, the Strait of Hormuz.
The talks, confirmed to the New York Times by two Iranian officials, center on a proposed arrangement in which vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz would be tolled, with Oman sharing in the revenue.
Oman, which shares a coast with the Gulf of Oman adjacent to the strait, was initially cool to the idea. Since then, she has warmed considerably as she calculated the potential financial increase in participation.
Bloomberg News was the first to report on the discussions. Nothing was signed. Whether anything will happen is still an open question.
How Iran built influence in global shipping
To understand why these talks are happening, it helps to go back to late February, when American and Israeli forces struck Iran. Tehran’s response was not purely military. Iranian authorities have effectively restricted commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, bringing international shipping to a near halt and significantly raising energy prices on global markets.
The breach was a demonstration of leverage as much as retaliation. About a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas from the sea moves through the strait. By showing that it could stem the flow, Iran created a bargaining chip that it has been reluctant to relinquish ever since.
A truce followed. But Iran was guarding the waterway.
Iran is creating a new authority to control the strait
On Wednesday (20 May), Iran’s newly established Gulf Authority announced on social media that it had “defined the boundaries of the Strait of Hormuz’s surveillance area”, adding that vessels would now require permission from the authority before passing through. The Gulf of Oman, which ships must cross to enter the strait from the east, falls within the zone the authority is said to be monitoring.
Iran’s state media, Press TV, said separately that a new mechanism was being introduced to control maritime traffic on a designated route and to charge for what it called “specialized services”.
Why Iran calls it a fee, not a toll
The choice of language is deliberate and legally calculated. Direct tolls for passage through the international strait would violate the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which guarantees vessels the right to navigate these waterways unhindered. Iran is not a signatory to the convention, but experts generally consider its basic principles to be binding on all nations under customary international law.
Charging for services provided to ships is a different matter and is allowed under certain conditions. By framing the proposed fees as charges for specific services, rather than payment for passage itself, Iran is attempting to create a legal justification for what would otherwise be clearly illegal.
James Kraska, a professor of international maritime law at the US Naval War College and a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, said that the navigational rules governing international straits are “virtually universally accepted” and that “Iran has put up with it for decades.”
He conceded that “reasonable fees are allowed in some situations” but warned that the burden would be on Iran to prove that its fees were indeed linked to the services provided, rather than the passage itself.
“They’re trying to cleverly fit” their proposal into a legal framework, Kraska said. Dressing up the transit fee as a service charge, he added, would be “almost like the mafia saying you have to pay protection money”.
Washington says no and means it
The Trump administration has left little room for ambiguity about where it stands. President Donald Trump was blunt from the Oval Office on Thursday.
“We want it for free,” he said. “We don’t want tolls. It’s international. It’s an international waterway.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio went further, calling any Iranian fee system an obstacle to the broader diplomatic process.
“That can’t happen,” Rubio said. “It would be unacceptable. It would make a diplomatic deal impossible if they went ahead with it.”
At various points, Trump suggested that the United States could impose tolls on the strait itself, describing it as a potential prerogative of what he called the self-proclaimed victor of the conflict, and floated the idea of revenue sharing. On Thursday, he shelved that idea entirely.
