Updated Aug. 17, 2026, 9:18 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump threatened military action against Oman, an ally of the United States, if its negotiations with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz interfere with U.S. efforts to reach a peace deal with Tehran.
“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the s— out of them,” Trump told Fox News in an Aug. 17 phone interview, according to Trey Yingst, the network’s chief foreign correspondent who talked to the president.
Outside of talks with the United States, Iran has engaged in negotiations with Oman about reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which borders the two countries and both Iran and the United States have asserted control. Iranian leaders have said it won’t agree to a deal unless the United States meets certain conditions, including compensation for Tehran.
Trump has rejected that idea and defended the success of a U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports that has sought to prevent Iranian ships from using the strait to transport oil. Trump said last week he’s ready to soon declare the Strait of Hormuz a “territory of the United States.”
Trump didn’t back off his threat against Oman when asked by a reporter about his remarks during an Oval Office event later on Aug. 17.
“I don’t think they’ve behaved very well, but we’d handle them very easily, just like we do other things,” Trump said.
The president’s warning to Oman came as a 60-day window for the United States to negotiate with Iran ‒ outlined in a memorandum of understanding in June ‒ expired. The memorandum was intended to give the two sides two more months to hammer out a peace deal, but the parameters of the preliminary agreement instead quickly fell apart, leaving no end in sight to a war that started in late February.
“Iran should wave the white flag of surrender,” Trump told Fox News, according to Yingst. Trump also said, “I have no time schedule” and “I’m not in a hurry,” even as the political fallout of the war in Iran is colliding with the November midterm elections.
With dimming prospects for a U.S-Iran deal to quickly emerge, Trump has repeatedly accused Iranian leaders of lying to him by saying one thing in their private negotiations and then the opposite in public.
The two sides dispute who controls the Strait of Hormuz, which about 20% of the world’s crude oil and liquefied gas pass through as a critical access point for Middle East oil exports. Since the memorandum of understanding’s unraveling, Iran has resumed attacks on ships in the strait that Iranian leaders say lack permission to access the channel.
Through the U.S. naval blockade, Trump claims the United States has opened the strait to all commercial ships other than those from Iran, crippling Iran’s economy because it relies on oil exports.
But Iran has rejected Trump’s characterization of the strait, asserting the waterway is instead under the “complete management and control” of Iran and that no commercial ships can go through without its permission.
Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.
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