NEW: Trump Threatens To ‘Bomb The S***’ Out Of US Ally
Trump Threatens to Bomb Oman Over Hormuz Talks - but Muscat Is Trying to Broker the Exit From a War Washington Has Not Ended
The president's warning to a longtime U.S. security partner was real and unusually blunt. What is more complicated is the deal behind it: Oman is not simply handing Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz, but trying to build a compromise between Tehran's demands and Washington's insistence on unrestricted passage.
The threat was real - and it was the second one in less than three months
Donald Trump's warning to Oman was not a paraphrase, a social-media rumor or an opposition characterization.
On August 17, during a telephone interview with Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst, the president was asked about Oman's negotiations with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump's answer was explicit: if Oman got in the way, the United States would bomb it, using an expletive for emphasis.
Reuters independently reported the remark the same day. Hours later, Trump was asked in the Oval Office whether he had lost patience with Muscat.
He did not withdraw the threat. Instead, he said Oman had not behaved very well and added that the United States could handle the country easily.
The language was extraordinary because Oman is not an adversary of the United States.
It is a longstanding U.S. security partner that gives American forces access to strategically important ports and facilities and has repeatedly served as a diplomatic channel between Washington and Tehran.
And this was not the first time Trump had spoken this way about Muscat.
At a White House Cabinet meeting on May 27, asked whether he would accept an Iran-Oman arrangement for the strait, Trump said Oman would 'behave' or the United States would have to 'blow them up.'
Two threats, separated by less than three months, make the August statement harder to dismiss as a single verbal slip.
Why Oman matters far beyond its size
Oman has spent decades building a foreign policy around being useful to countries that do not trust one another.
That has made the sultanate unusually valuable to the United States in moments when direct diplomacy with Iran is politically or operationally difficult.
Oman played a discreet role in the secret U.S.-Iran contacts that helped create the diplomatic path toward the 2015 nuclear agreement.
In 2026, before the current war began, Muscat again hosted separate consultations with Iranian and American delegations in an effort to revive nuclear diplomacy.
The security relationship is equally concrete.
The United States and Oman signed a military cooperation agreement in 1980, renewed it in 2010, and in 2019 expanded American access to facilities and ports at Duqm and Salalah.
Washington has also sold Oman billions of dollars in defense equipment and has long described cooperation with Muscat as important to freedom of navigation around the Strait of Hormuz.
That history is why 'ally' is often used colloquially to describe Oman, although 'close security partner' is the more precise formulation: the United States and Oman do not have a NATO-style mutual-defense treaty.
Threatening military action against such a partner is therefore not routine pressure diplomacy.
The dispute is about who gets to shape the postwar Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz has become the central bargaining chip in the U.S.-Iran conflict.
Before the war, roughly one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flowed through the narrow passage between Iran and Oman.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration calculated that about 20 million barrels per day of oil moved through Hormuz in 2024, while about one-fifth of global LNG trade used the same route.
After the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran began on February 28, normal traffic collapsed and the strait became both a battlefield and negotiating weapon.
Iran has insisted that the waterway cannot simply return to the prewar arrangement in which commercial shipping passed without Tehran controlling the system or collecting general transit payments.
Washington wants essentially the opposite: restored commercial passage without mandatory Iranian fees, restrictions or political permission.
Oman is caught between those positions because it controls the opposite shore of the strait and because both sides need some practical mechanism to get ships moving again.
The biggest correction: Oman's proposal is not simply an Iranian takeover plan
The most misleading shorthand in the political argument is that Muscat is helping Tehran 'tighten its grip' over the strait.
Oman is certainly negotiating with Iran, and the emerging arrangements would give Tehran a role Washington strongly dislikes.
But Reuters reported in late July that Oman's proposal was backed by Gulf states and was designed specifically to prevent Iran from exercising sole control.
Under the Omani concept, management would be regional rather than exclusively Iranian, and shipping contributions would be voluntary rather than the mandatory service fees Tehran has sought.
The idea was compared with voluntary contribution systems used around the Strait of Malacca to fund navigation, environmental protection and rescue services.
That does not mean Washington accepts the plan.
A U.S. official told Reuters the administration rejects tolls or fees for ordinary transit and wants Hormuz free of Iranian control or restrictions.
Associated Press reporting in August said U.S. officials were also objecting to parts of a still-unannounced route-management arrangement between Iran and Oman.
The real dispute, then, is not 'Oman joins Iran against America.'
It is that Oman is trying to build a middle position Washington may consider too favorable to Tehran and Tehran may consider insufficiently sovereign.
The May threat was followed by a private reassurance - and then the dispute returned
Trump's first threat toward Oman came during an earlier fight over possible shipping charges.
On May 27, he said the strait would remain open to everybody and that nobody would control it, then threatened to 'blow up' Oman if it did not behave.
The next day, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he had spoken directly with the Omani ambassador.
According to Bessent, the ambassador assured him that Oman had no plans to impose a toll on ships using the strait.
Bessent said he told the ambassador that tolling was a nonstarter and warned that Omani people or financial institutions could face sanctions exposure if they participated.
For a time, that exchange appeared to lower the immediate temperature.
But the underlying problem never disappeared because Iran kept insisting that any durable reopening had to acknowledge a new postwar security and management arrangement.
By late July, Oman was again circulating a compromise involving regional management and voluntary fees.
By mid-August, Iran said the two neighbors were nearing a joint statement on shipping lanes.
And Trump again reached for the threat of force.
'International waters' is politically simple and legally imprecise
Trump has repeatedly said that Hormuz is 'international waters' and that nobody is going to control it.
The freedom-of-navigation principle behind that argument is important, but the legal geography is more complicated.
The strait is narrow enough that much of the navigable channel runs through the territorial seas of Iran and Oman rather than through a broad strip of high seas belonging to no state.
Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, straits used for international navigation are subject to a right of transit passage that generally may not be impeded.
The convention also recognizes that bordering states retain sovereignty or jurisdiction over their territorial waters, subject to those passage rules.
Oman is a party to the convention. The United States has never ratified it but treats many of its navigation provisions as customary international law. Iran signed the convention but has not ratified it and disputes important parts of Washington's interpretation.
That is why both Trump's statement that 'nobody' controls the strait and Iran's assertion that it can impose whatever passage regime it wants are too absolute.
The real legal fight is over how coastal-state sovereignty interacts with the internationally recognized right of transit passage through a crucial maritime chokepoint.
The June peace framework did not solve the central problem
The current confrontation cannot be understood without the June 17 U.S.-Iran agreement.
That interim framework called for an end to hostilities, reopened the strait without tolls for a limited period and started a 60-day negotiating window for a broader nuclear and security agreement.
It also provided Iran with major sanctions relief while calling for international monitoring of the downblending of its highly enriched uranium stockpile.
The arrangement quickly frayed.
Trump said the deal was effectively over in early July, Iran later described it as suspended, and shipping arrangements again broke down amid attacks and disputes over which channels vessels could use.
The 60-day deadline expired on August 17 without a final agreement.
Trump said that day he did not want an extension and declared that Iran would not make the kind of deal he considered necessary.
That is the immediate backdrop to his threat against Oman: Washington's own negotiation track had stalled while the only confirmed active talks were the Iran-Oman discussions over shipping.
The public record does not support every detailed claim about America's final nuclear demands
Trump's core public position is clear: Iran cannot be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon.
The administration has also sought control over or restrictions on Iran's enriched uranium stockpile and a nuclear agreement more restrictive than the arrangement that existed before the war.
But political summaries often turn those goals into a fully specified final U.S. checklist - zero enrichment for a fixed period, surrender of every stockpile, abandonment of every capability and a precise timetable - even though the final negotiated text has never been publicly agreed.
The June framework itself called for downblending highly enriched uranium under IAEA monitoring and left the long-term nuclear terms for the subsequent 60-day negotiation.
By August 20, Trump had shifted publicly toward even harsher economic pressure, saying he would wage 'economic warfare' against Iran and punish countries that materially supported Tehran.
That shift is important because it shows how far diplomacy has deteriorated since the June agreement.
Iran's demands are broader than control of Hormuz
Tehran has also attached a wider set of conditions to reopening the strait and returning to a durable settlement.
Reuters reported in August that Iranian officials were demanding an end to U.S. sanctions and military threats as well as compensation for war damage before full reopening.
Other reporting has described demands involving the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, frozen Iranian assets and the broader military posture around the country.
Those conditions go well beyond a technical shipping arrangement.
They show why Hormuz is being used as leverage in a much larger negotiation over sanctions, the nuclear program, security guarantees, reconstruction and the end state of the war.
Oman can help negotiate shipping lanes.
It cannot by itself settle every U.S.-Iran dispute that now sits behind those lanes.
The economic pressure is already visible
The argument is not taking place in an abstract shipping-law seminar.
Energy markets have been reacting to the conflict for months because very few routes can replace Hormuz at comparable scale.
Brent crude moved back above $90 a barrel this week as the 60-day negotiating window expired and Trump's new threat toward Oman reinforced expectations of a prolonged confrontation.
Ship-tracking data have shown traffic at a fraction of normal levels on multiple days, although the exact count can be distorted when vessels switch off transponders for security reasons.
On August 19, Reuters reported nine commodity vessels transiting the strait, unchanged from the previous day - evidence that some traffic continues, but nowhere near the old image of an unrestricted commercial artery.
That distinction matters because Trump has repeatedly said the strait is open while Iran has described it as closed or conditionally restricted.
The physical reality sits between the slogans: ships are getting through, but traffic remains constrained, risky and politically controlled in ways that did not exist before the war.
Oman has mostly refused to answer Trump's threat in kind
One of the most striking parts of the episode is Muscat's public restraint.
After Trump's August warning, Oman's foreign ministry did not immediately issue a retaliatory statement or threaten to suspend security cooperation with Washington.
Omani official messaging instead continued to emphasize diplomacy, safe navigation and talks with regional governments.
That is consistent with the role Oman has cultivated for decades.
Its influence comes less from military weight than from remaining a government that rival powers can still use as a channel when their direct relationships collapse.
Trump's threat puts that model under unusual pressure because Muscat is now being warned by one side for talking to the other in precisely the kind of mediation role Washington has previously valued.
The White House is drawing a hard line - but not only against Iran
The source article is correct about one broader point: Trump's latest Oman warning shows that the administration's pressure campaign is no longer aimed only at Tehran.
Washington is signaling that partners can also face consequences if their efforts produce an arrangement the White House believes legitimizes Iranian control, fees or political leverage over Hormuz.
That policy became even clearer on August 20, when Trump threatened unprecedented economic isolation against countries that materially support Iran.
The administration is therefore combining military threats, sanctions, naval pressure and economic coercion in an effort to force a settlement on terms it prefers.
Whether that pressure brings Iran back to the table or makes intermediaries less willing to mediate is an unanswered strategic question.
Oman sits directly at the center of it.
A threat is not an attack order - and Congress is already preparing for that distinction to matter
Trump's words are serious because they came from the commander in chief, but there is no public evidence that he has ordered the Pentagon to prepare a strike on Oman.
That distinction is important both diplomatically and constitutionally.
A presidential threat can be used as coercive leverage without becoming an operational decision. An actual U.S. attack on Oman would raise a separate fight over presidential war powers, congressional authorization and the future of American access to Omani facilities.
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia responded to the August 17 statement by announcing that he intends to file a War Powers Resolution prohibiting military action against Oman when the Senate returns from its August recess.
Kaine's statement is a Democratic criticism of Trump, not a judicial ruling that a future strike would automatically be unlawful.
But it shows that the threat has already moved beyond foreign-policy commentary and into a live congressional dispute over who can authorize a new theater of hostilities.
The administration has not publicly announced a case for attacking Oman, identified an imminent Omani threat to the United States or said that a military operation is underway.
That makes the present story one of coercive diplomacy, not a confirmed war plan.
The difference should remain explicit unless the White House or Pentagon provides evidence that the policy has crossed from threat to preparation.
The strongest version of the story needs less exaggeration, not more
Trump really did threaten to bomb a close U.S. security partner.
He really had issued a similar threat in May.
The Strait of Hormuz really is one of the world's most consequential energy chokepoints, and the dispute over its reopening is helping keep oil prices elevated and shipping risk unusually high.
Washington also has a genuine strategic objection to any arrangement that gives Iran mandatory tolling power or a veto over ordinary commercial passage.
None of those facts requires turning Oman into an Iranian proxy.
The available reporting shows Muscat trying to construct a Gulf-backed compromise that limits Iran's exclusive control, makes proposed fees voluntary and restores enough predictability for commercial traffic to resume.
The United States still considers parts of that compromise unacceptable.
Iran still wants more control and broader concessions.
And Oman is trying to negotiate between two governments that are now using the world's most important oil chokepoint as leverage against each other.
That is why the August threat matters.
It is not simply another Trump soundbite aimed at Tehran.
It is a warning that even the mediator may become a target if Washington concludes that the compromise itself gives Iran too much.
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