Washington rejects extending the collapsed nuclear pact as Muscat pursues its own Hormuz deal with Tehran
President Trump said Monday the United States would "bomb the shit out of" Oman if the longtime U.S. ally "gets in the way" of its parallel talks with Iran on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, according to Fox News' Trey Yingst, who conducted the interview. Asked directly by the BBC in the Oval Office whether he would extend the 60-day U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding that expired Monday, Trump answered simply: "No."
The threat against Oman — not Iran — landed on the same day Tehran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei announced Iran and Oman had reached "an understanding" on a transit-route map for the Strait of Hormuz, a bilateral arrangement Washington is not party to. Trump also told reporters Iran "should put up the white flag of surrender," while declaring on Truth Social that the United States would soon claim the Strait of Hormuz for itself after "defeating Iran," and that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.
Rejecting the deal, targeting the mediator
Trump gave no indication a new negotiating framework is imminent. "They want to make a deal, but they're not going to make the kind of a deal that I feel is necessary," he said, adding he has "no time schedule" and is "not in a hurry." The remarks close the window opened by the Islamabad-brokered ceasefire, whose 14-point text left the Strait of Hormuz's contested Point 5 undefined by design — a gap Trump had already called "over" in July, weeks before the deal's formal expiry.
Oman's alleged offense, in Trump's framing, is proceeding with a mediation channel Washington doesn't control. "I don't think they behaved very well," he said of Muscat, "but we'd handle them very easily, just like we do other things." It is not the first such threat: Trump warned in May that "Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we'll have to blow 'em up." Oman was also among the five Gulf states struck by Iran in July after its own mediation attempt broke down.
Observers are reading: why Iran's "fully offensive" shift and the IRGC's denial matter more than the Oman threat itself.
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No framework, no timeline
Brent crude traded above $89 a barrel Monday, rising past $91 by Tuesday — a muted response given the stakes; shipping traffic through the strait had already fallen to roughly six vessels a day, against a recent 10-day average near 11 and a pre-war baseline of more than 100 daily transits. With the MoU unextended and Trump claiming "total control over the Strait," the U.S. and Iran now hold opposing, unmediated positions on the same chokepoint, with the one functioning diplomatic channel caught between them.
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