U.S. Gives Iran Saturday Deadline on Strait of Hormuz

The United States issued a stark ultimatum to Iran on Friday, demanding that Tehran publicly declare the Strait of Hormuz open to all commercial traffic by Saturday or face military and economic consequences, senior U.S. officials said.

Iranian officials privately told Trump administration advisers that attacks on commercial ships in the strait earlier this week were a mistake, that the strikes were carried out by an "errant" sect of hardliners seeking to undermine ongoing negotiations, and that Tehran wanted to continue talking, the officials said.

"They came back to the table and said, 'We screwed up. We made a mistake. Let's keep talking,'" one senior U.S. official said.

Despite that private acknowledgment, the White House demanded a public statement. "What we're demanding is that the Iranians issue a public statement that acknowledges all channels of the Strait of Hormuz are open and they're not shooting at ships anymore," another official said. "They're either going to give us that statement, or we're not going to have a good outcome."

Talks were set to resume Saturday in Oman. After that meeting, the administration expected Iran to formally state that the strait would be open and managed in the same way it was before the latest escalation. If Iran did not take that position, the official warned, "it's not going to be a great day for them."

President Trump, who earlier this week declared the ceasefire "over" and authorized two nights of airstrikes against roughly 170 Iranian targets, directed his negotiating team — led by Vice President JD Vance, Jared Kushner, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio — to continue the diplomatic effort. Trump, however, was described as giving negotiators limited time.

Jennifer Jacobs, writing on X as @JenniferJJacobs, was among the first to report Friday that Iranian officials had privately told Trump advisers the attacks stemmed from "an 'errant' sect of hardliners who are trying to undermine negotiations" and that Tehran wanted to keep talking. Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) also reported the private acknowledgment, noting that senior U.S. officials described Iran as blaming "an 'errant' faction of hardliners seeking to undermine negotiations."

Maritime trackers spotted the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS George H.W. Bush entering the Gulf of Oman on Friday, a positioning that experts said would support a potential reinstatement of the naval blockade on Iranian ports. U.S. Central Command said more than 20 Navy warships were patrolling waters across the Middle East.

The Trump administration maintained that the ship attacks happened not because of rogue hardliners, as Iran claimed, but because Iran was caught off guard by the volume of oil and gas traffic moving through the southern lane of the strait — along the Omani coast — after a memorandum of understanding signed last month reopened commercial shipping routes.

Beyond the immediate crisis over the strait, U.S. negotiators warned they would never be able to address the thornier issue of Iran's nuclear program if Tehran could not honor what officials called the easiest part of the deal: keeping the waterway open to trade.

Regarding the remnants of Iran's nuclear program — referred to by the president as "nuclear dust" — U.S. officials said they would prefer to excavate the material, but noted that if Iran refused to act like a "normal country," other options existed, including leaving the material buried.

The officials declined to comment on reports that Israeli intelligence had revealed Iranian plots against Trump, but said the president did not make decisions based on fear or threats. Trump himself, in an interview Friday, described Iran's targeting of him as longstanding, saying, "Israel came up with nothing."

Global oil demand has fallen as a result of the ongoing conflict, dropping to 97.9 million barrels per day in May, down 5.3 million barrels per day from a year earlier, according to the International Energy Agency — the first year-over-year decline since the COVID-19 pandemic.