Trump threatens to bomb Oman over its Iran deal on Strait of Hormuz

President Donald Trump warned that the United States would “blow them up” if Oman attempted to broker its own arrangement with Iran over control of the Strait of Hormuz. The threat, directed at one of Washington’s most reliable partners in the Middle East, marks a dramatic escalation in an already volatile regional standoff. The statement came during cabinet discussions on May 27, as US-Iran negotiations continued to stall and Oman quietly advanced its own diplomatic track with Tehran. “Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow them up,” Trump said, framing the sultanate’s independent diplomacy as interference rather than mediation. A mediator caught in the crossfire Oman has spent decades cultivating a reputation as the Gulf’s honest broker. The sultanate facilitated the secret back-channel talks that eventually led to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and it has consistently maintained diplomatic ties with Tehran even as its Gulf Cooperation Council neighbors severed theirs. The Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply typically flows, has been largely inaccessible since early 2026. The closure stems from the ongoin...