There was a bizarre moment at a White House Cabinet meeting in May when Donald Trump was asked about Oman playing the role of a diplomatic interlocutor between the United States and Iran.
“Oman will behave just like everyone else, or we’ll have to blow them up,” the president said.
It wasn’t altogether clear why he made such a threat. There was also some question as to whether Trump realized that Oman is a longtime U.S. ally. But shortly after the Cabinet meeting, Trump’s State Department nevertheless used social media to promote and amplify the president’s comments.
In the weeks that followed, Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to ease tensions, declaring publicly that the U.S. relationship with Oman “is fine,” the American president’s threat to “blow them up” notwithstanding.
That was in June. Two months later, “fine” does not appear to be the best adjective to describe relations between the two countries.
As MS NOW’s Hayley Meissner noted, Trump began the week telling Fox News that he’s prepared to “bomb the s—” out of Oman if the country gets “in the way.” In response to Trump’s threat, a senior Middle East diplomat with direct knowledge of the Iran-Oman talks told MS NOW that Oman’s “primary objective” is working toward a “solution that leads to” the reopening of the strait.
Soon after, at an unrelated White House event, a reporter asked Trump about his latest threat.
“I don’t think they behave very well,” Trump said, referring to officials in Oman, “but we handle them very easily, just like we do other things.”
The bellicose rhetoric led to a new round of speculation about why the American president is threatening to attack a U.S. ally in the Middle East. With this in mind, The Wall Street Journal reported: “The Gulf country that borders the Strait of Hormuz to the south is in talks with Iran to allow more commercial traffic in the waterway. U.S. officials said those negotiations were progressing and could relieve pressure on the global energy market and higher domestic gas prices. But there is lingering concern within the administration that Oman could aid Iran in brokering a nuclear deal more favorable to Tehran, feeding Trump’s anger.”
Looking ahead, time will tell whether the president actually follows through on his latest round of saber-rattling. But if he does, Oman will join a staggering list: Trump has spent his second term launching military strikes in Venezuela, Yemen, Syria, Nigeria, Somalia and Iran, as well as several dozen attacks against civilian boats in international waters.
There’s also the head-spinning fact that Trump appears far friendlier to U.S. adversaries than allies. As former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted via Bluesky, “The president is making U.S. policy friendlier to North Korea and Russia than Canada and Oman. Are you kidding me?”
But with Rubio’s comments from June in mind, let’s also not lose sight of the fact that Trump has publicly contradicted his own secretary of state with surprising frequency in recent months, generating new uncertainty about U.S. foreign policy in the midst of an ongoing conflict.
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