Oman had hosted Iran talks on strait shipping
President Trump told Fox News in a Monday phone interview that the United States would bomb Oman if the Gulf state “gets in the way” of U.S. efforts to reach a peace deal with Iran, according to Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst.
“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the s— out of them,” Yingst reported Trump saying during the phone interview. Trump also said U.S. forces could strike the Gulf nation if it interfered in the blockade of Iranian ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz.
The threat came as Oman had been engaged in talks with Iranian negotiators in recent weeks. Iranian and Omani officials have held discussions over a provisional arrangement to manage shipping through the strategically important waterway, the Wall Street Journal reported. Trump did not address those talks directly in his remarks to Fox.
Yingst reported that Trump said the blockade was applying pressure on Iran but offered no timeline for ending the conflict, telling Fox he was “in no hurry” to conclude it. The war between the United States and Iran has now stretched nearly six months, with intermittent clashes continuing to disrupt the flow of oil and other commodities through the strait.
The conflict has sent oil and gas prices higher ahead of November’s midterm elections. Peace talks between the U.S. and Iran have stalled, with Trump offering no indication in his Fox interview of when the fighting might end.
In a separate post on his Truth Social platform Monday, Trump said his “number one Goal” remained ensuring that Iran “cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon.”