In a provocative new escalation of tensions surrounding the six-month-long conflict over the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an explicit threat Monday to bomb U.S. Gulf ally Oman if the nation interferes with ongoing American efforts to strike a new agreement with Iran over control of the critical global energy chokepoint. The threat, delivered during an interview with Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, comes as growing political pressure mounts on Trump to end the military stalemate that has sent global fuel prices soaring and sparked widespread public opposition ahead of November’s critical U.S. midterm elections, where Republicans are fighting to retain control of Congress.
The narrow Strait of Hormuz, which connects major Persian Gulf oil and gas producers to global shipping markets, has been effectively closed to most commercial traffic by Iranian forces since the outbreak of conflict on February 28. The waterway, which carries roughly 20 percent of the world’s daily oil supplies, remains the core sticking point in the deadlocked standoff between Washington and Tehran. Iran controls the strait’s northern coastline, while Oman occupies its southern bank, and Muscat has been engaged in weeks of bilateral negotiations with Tehran to hammer out new navigation arrangements for the passage. As of Monday, Iran’s foreign ministry confirmed the two nations were finalizing a joint declaration outlining their proposed framework – a development that triggered Trump’s aggressive rhetoric.
“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them,” Trump told Yingst, referencing the ongoing Omani-Iranian talks. As of Tuesday, Omani officials had not issued any public response to the U.S. president’s remarks. The negotiations between Muscat and Tehran follow the collapse of an earlier Pakistan-mediated interim deal between the U.S. and Iran designed to reopen the strait to commercial traffic. Renewed fighting over the waterway immediately derailed that agreement, spreading the conflict to other Gulf nations and disrupting commercial shipping routes across the entire Middle East.
In addition to threatening Oman, Trump repeated his demand that Iran surrender unconditionally to end the conflict, according to Yingst’s account of the interview posted to the social platform X. The president has repeatedly claimed the U.S. already controls the strait, despite public data showing commercial traffic through the passage remains severely restricted. Just days earlier, Trump sparked a sharp new retaliation from Tehran when he announced he would claim the entire Strait of Hormuz as U.S. territory, a move Iran dismissed by reaffirming the chokepoint “will remain Iranian.”
The conflict has emerged as a major political liability for Trump and congressional Republicans, with volatile fuel prices and broad public disapproval of the war dragging down poll numbers ahead of the midterm elections. Despite this pressure, Trump insisted Monday he is in no rush to finalize a new agreement, confirming that his administration maintains a direct back-channel communication link with leaders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. “They’re good poker players, but they’re dying,” Trump was quoted as saying of the Iranian leadership.
Tehran has leveraged its control of the strait to push back against U.S.-led efforts to destroy its military capacity and force the country to abandon its contested nuclear power program. Iran’s current demands include formal recognition of its right to control access to the waterway and collect transit fees from passing ships – terms the U.S. has repeatedly rejected outright. Parallel to Iran’s closure of Hormuz, Iran-aligned Houthi forces in Yemen have implemented a separate maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea ports, the only alternative export route for the kingdom’s oil, amplifying the global supply crunch.
Trump’s aggressive new rhetoric comes as international allies continue to press for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Trump by phone Monday, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu News Agency, and stressed the urgent need to “fully utilize diplomacy” to de-escalate tensions between Washington and Tehran. Erdogan reaffirmed that Ankara would continue supporting all regional and international efforts to secure a peaceful negotiated settlement to the conflict. Major oil-importing nations have repeatedly warned that the ongoing closure of the strait risks long-term global energy market instability and widespread economic damage.