The United States on Friday designated Iran a “state sponsor of wrongful detention,” the first country blacklisted under a new policy that could eventually lead to a U.S. travel ban for the Islamic Republic. The move comes as Washington builds up its military presence near Iran and threatens to strike over concerns tied to Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.
“The Iranian regime must stop taking hostages and release all Americans unjustly detained in Iran, steps that could end this designation and associated actions,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. He warned that if Iran makes no progress, the United States could decide that U.S. passports are invalid for travel to Iran.
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The blacklist—created by a September executive order signed by President Donald Trump—mirrors the structure of longstanding U.S. terrorism designations by targeting governments accused of detaining foreign nationals as leverage. Iran is the first to be placed under the wrongful-detention designation, reflecting a yearslong pattern of arrests that frequently ensnare dual nationals whom Tehran considers Iranian citizens.
“No American should travel to Iran for any reason. We reiterate our call for Americans who are currently in Iran to leave immediately,” Rubio said.
The designation adds a new layer to the wider standoff over Iran’s nuclear activities. A day after U.S.-Iran talks touched on nuclear and other issues, Trump said he opposes any uranium enrichment in Iran, even for civilian use. “I say no enrichment,” he told reporters in Corpus Christi, Texas. “Not 20%, 30%—they always want 20%, 30%, they want it for civilians. I think it’s uncivil.” He also said he was “not happy with the negotiation.”
In a potentially significant turn, Oman said Iran agreed during the talks to never stockpile enriched uranium—an assurance that, if verified and sustained, could narrow a key pathway to a nuclear weapon and reduce the immediate risk of conflict. “This is something completely new. It really makes the enrichment argument less relevant, because now we are talking about zero stockpiling,” Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi told CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”
The Trump administration has repeatedly accused Iran of intending to build a nuclear weapon. Albusaidi suggested that the no-stockpiling pledge, if implemented, would undercut that goal. “If you cannot stockpile material that is enriched then there is no way you can actually create a bomb,” he said.
Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, while U.S. officials and independent watchdogs have chronicled years of sensitive enrichment work that has outpaced diplomatic restraints. The newly announced wrongful-detention designation threads a separate but politically charged needle: deterring state-backed hostage-taking and pressuring Iran to release Americans held on security and espionage allegations that families and advocacy groups say are baseless.
The State Department did not immediately detail additional penalties tied to the designation beyond the potential invalidation of U.S. passports for Iran travel, but the announcement signals a hardening posture on citizen security amid the nuclear talks. It also raises the stakes for dual nationals—with family, business, or cultural ties to Iran—who may be more vulnerable to arrest and less able to rely on consular assistance once in Iranian custody.
By escalating pressure on detention practices while debating safeguards around nuclear enrichment and stockpiling, Washington and Tehran are testing whether narrow confidence-building steps can coexist with broader strategic confrontation. For now, the United States is warning Americans to stay away—and warning Iran that the cost for holding them could rise.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
