Donald Trump said Oman would be at risk if it did not “behave just like everybody else,” and said yesterday that he would “blow up” Oman if it entered an agreement with Iran to manage shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
The remarks landed as a fresh warning shot in a dispute already tied to one of the world’s most sensitive waterways. Trump circulated a draft peace agreement for the war with Iran among allies including Israel, while U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened Thursday to target Oman if it helped impose a tolling system in the strait. Bessent said the Treasury would aggressively target any actors involved directly or indirectly in facilitating tolls for the strait, and said any willing partners would be penalized.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, called Trump’s threats against Oman “dangerous” and “bullying.” He said threats to “destroy” a United Nations member state violated the fundamental principle that bars the threat of force. Baghaei also said Oman had played a constructive, effective and responsible role in regional peace and security, and that Muscat had spent many years using diplomacy in the service of regional peace and stability.
Oman’s position matters because the Strait of Hormuz remains a key shipping route, and any move to control traffic there ripples far beyond the Gulf. The draft Trump has shared would open the strait to commercial shipping, lift the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports and give Iran access to as much as $12bn in frozen assets.
The tension is not only rhetorical. Tehran targeted a U.S. air base in Kuwait on Thursday after Washington struck what it described as an Iranian drone operation near the Strait of Hormuz, underscoring how quickly the confrontation can spill from threats into retaliation. Pakistan’s foreign minister, Mohammad Ishaq Dar, is scheduled to fly to Washington on Friday to meet U.S. counterpart Marco Rubio, adding another diplomatic channel just as the region absorbs the latest escalation. For Oman, the immediate question is whether a country long used as a mediator can keep that role while being drawn into the center of the fight.
If the message from Washington was meant to harden leverage, it also widened the diplomatic cost. A state known for quiet mediation is now being named in public threats, and that makes the next round of talks over Hormuz, Iran and regional shipping harder to separate from the politics of intimidation.
