President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to strike Oman if it interferes in a potential deal over control of the Strait of Hormuz.
“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the s— out of them,” Trump said in a phone interview with Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst.
Yingst relayed the quote from Trump on air, which he said came in response to questions about talks between Oman and Iran over the status of the strait. No audio of the interview was provided. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the remarks.
Trump was asked to expand on those comments while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office later in the day. “I don’t think they behaved very well, but we’d handle them very easily, just like we do other things,” Trump said.
Oman, which borders Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia and is near the Strait of Hormuz, has been negotiating with Iran over the vital shipping route. Iran’s semiofficial Mehr News Agency said Saturday that Iran had reached an agreement with Oman on a plan for traffic in the waterway.
Monday marks the end of a 60-day deadline that the U.S. and Iran agreed to in June to end the war and reach an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.
Shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz nearly ground to a halt over the weekend, with just 13 ships passing through the waterway, including three Sunday, according to maritime traffic tracker MarineTraffic.
In response to Trump’s threat, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said in a statement Monday that when the Senate returns to Washington from its August recess, he plans to introduce a resolution that would bar military action against Oman. The Democratic senator, who has long advocated putting limits on the president’s military powers, said he hopes to “find some Republican colleagues to join with Democrats and check this blindly stumbling power-drunk President from inflicting more damage on the U.S. and the world.”
Trump floated the idea last week of declaring the strait a U.S. territory. Asked Monday to elaborate on those remarks, the president said, “We have total control over the strait,” adding that a U.S.-imposed blockade “has been very effective.”
“Now maybe that will stop, or maybe it’ll open up even further,” he said. “But we’re taking out millions of barrels of oil a week. If you look at the kind of numbers that we’re doing … the strait is open, and the oil prices are coming down, and they will continue to come down unless we decide to do something far more drastic than we’re doing.”
As Trump made the comment, the international benchmark Brent crude oil broke above $90 per barrel and rose 2.7% to its highest level of the day.
Fox’s Yingst also spoke on Monday to Trump’s son-in-law and special envoy Jared Kushner, who said Trump has been “very focused on the economic pressure” on Iran.
“He really feels strongly about the blockade,” Kushner said. “If you look at the Iranian economy, it’s way worse off. It was bad before the war. It’s way worse off now.”
Kushner added that Iran has “to be willing to make a real deal” and warned against it trying to “play a trick or to do something to hide certain cards and get certain concessions.”
