On August 4, 2026, US President Donald Trump said a deal over the Strait of Hormuz could come "tomorrow or the next day," adding that "a lot of progress has been made" (The Guardian, 2026-08-05). Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed that assessment, according to the same source. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi separately told Reuters that Tehran's negotiations with Oman were in their final stages (Reuters, 2026-08-02.

Yet the gap between Washington's framing and Tehran's is structural, not a matter of wording.

The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow shipping lane between Iran and Oman through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil and gas once flowed. It has been effectively shut since February 28, 2026, sending global energy prices soaring. The closure followed open conflict in the Gulf that erupted after a June 2026 memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the US and Iran collapsed within about a week, with each side accusing the other of breaching its terms.

That June agreement, championed by the White House as "America First in Action," was supposed to reopen the strait to toll-free international shipping and require Iran to give up its nuclear program (White House, 2026-06-19). The administration listed "Hormuz Fully Reopened" among its top achievements. It did not hold. Trump's stated objectives against Iran, laid out by the White House in April 2026, included obliterating Iran's missile production, annihilating its navy, and severing its support for designated terrorist groups (White House). A national emergency with respect to Iran had been reaffirmed by executive order in February 2026 (White House, 2026-02-06.

The current diplomatic channel runs through Oman, not through direct US-Iran negotiation. Iran's state-run broadcaster IRIB, citing an informed source, reported that any agreement between Iran and Oman on vessel transit arrangements "has nothing to do with the immediate opening of the strait" and that the talks are "purely Iranian-Omani" with "no connection to the United States" (The Guardian, 2026-08-05). Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei reinforced that line on August 2, stating that the strait "will never return to the situation that existed before the war" and that the Omani agreement does not mean reopening (IRNA, 2026-08-02.

Tehran's conditions for any reopening are explicit. IRIB reported that "if US violations continue, the Strait of Hormuz will not open even with an agreement between Iran and Oman," and that opening depends on "a change in behaviour and correction of US violations." A central Iranian demand is the removal of the US naval blockade on Iranian ports. Iran has also pushed for greater control of the strait itself, a demand Washington firmly rejects (The Guardian, 2026-08-05.

Iran's Parliament Speaker added a time-bound element in early July, stating that passage through the strait would be free of charge for only 60 days and that Iran would not back down from its rights in the waterway (IRNA, 2026-07-01. On July 9, Iran said foreigners "have no stake" in the strait and warned about a gradual reopening (IRNA, 2026-07-09. The United States, for its part, has sought free transit through the strait during the talks (Reuters, 2026-07-11.

Trump's description of the prospective deal includes "the immediate, complete and total opening of the strait" and "an end to Iran's nuclear threat" (Al Jazeera, 2026-08-02. He also said he expected negotiations to begin within a day or two to reopen the strait and create a pathway for Iran to address its nuclear program (The Guardian, 2026-08-03.

The core tension is that Trump is describing a comprehensive US-Iran settlement, while Tehran is describing a bilateral maritime arrangement with Oman that explicitly excludes Washington and does not guarantee reopening. The June MOU, which similarly paired strait reopening with nuclear concessions and a US blockade lift, lasted about a week before hostilities resumed. Whether the current Omani channel can avoid the same fate is the question the next 48 hours will begin to answer.

The broader context here is that Iran's threat calculus has not softened. Tehran has explicitly warned that if the United States continues to threaten Iran, the strait stays shut, agreement or not. The proposed MOU from June called for both reopening the strait and lifting the US naval blockade on Iranian ports (Reuters, 2026-06-12. Neither condition has been fulfilled. What has changed since June is the intermediation of Oman and the narrowing of the negotiating track to a bilateral maritime framework, which may lower the political temperature but also lowers the ceiling of what any deal can deliver.

For energy markets, the distinction between a transit arrangement and a full reopening is everything. A framework for Omani-flagged or jointly managed vessel passages would not restore the pre-war throughput of a waterway carrying 20 percent of global oil and gas. It would be a first step, not a resolution.