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Oman’s Deputy Prime Minister Sayyid Asaad Tariq Taimur al-Said (left) and US President Donald Trump attend a Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Riyadh on May 14, 2025.Brendan Smialowski\/AFP\/Getty<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tGet your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.<\/a><\/p>\n On Monday morning, President Donald Trump issued a blunt warning to America\u2019s erstwhile ally: \u201cIf Oman gets in the way, we\u2019ll bomb the shit out of them.\u201d It was another one of his un-diplomatic jabs at a longtime friend<\/a>\u2014this time for the possibility that Oman might prove helpful to Iran in ending the war. But if Trump\u2019s aggressive, crude attitude towards an ally isn\u2019t confusing enough, it\u2019s also another example of how Trump\u2019s sprawling efforts at personal enrichment since he returned to office have only made US foreign policy more complicated.<\/p>\n Because, of course, Trump has a lavish golf course and real estate development deal<\/a>, right in Oman, on the edge\u2014literally, the cliff\u2019s edge\u2014of the Gulf of Oman, which is just a few dozen miles from the embattled Strait of Hormuz. And the incredibly lucrative terms of the deal\u2014as is the case with most economic opportunities in absolute monarchies such as Oman\u2014were granted to Trump and his business partners with the blessing of the Omani government and crown.<\/p>\n Will this business engagement actually deter Trump from bombing the oldest independent state in the Arab world? That\u2019s unclear, if only because it\u2019s so hard to distinguish Trump\u2019s real threats when it comes to bombing from the empty ones. But the irrefutable fact that he has a large money-making opportunity in the same location where he proposes to bomb raises several questions about how he navigates his priorities as commander-in-chief and international developer.<\/p>\n As I\u2019ve written before<\/a>, Trump has a very good deal in Oman.<\/p>\n A\u00a0livestream<\/a>\u00a0of the site shows a sun-drenched stretch of water, edged by brown desert rock outcroppings, where it\u2019s easy to imagine minimalist boxy units, cantilevered 400 feet above the sea, starting at just $1 million.<\/p>\n Built by Saudi real estate developer Dar Global on land provided by the Omani government outside its capital city of Muscat, all those seaside views and quiet luxury could be a gold mine for the US president. In 2024, he\u00a0earned<\/a>\u00a0$1 million in licensing fees from the deal. The project\u2019s\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0boasts of its \u201cideal location.\u201d It offers \u201ceasy access\u201d to the Persian Gulf, which sits just a few hundred miles to the northwest via the Strait of Hormuz. Oman, the website notes, is \u201cone of the safest countries in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n But whatever conflicts of interest may be playing out in Oman are nothing new. It\u2019s difficult to list all the places Trump\u2019s personal business interests are intermingled with US national security interests. Even in South Korea\u2014which Trump also lambasted recently\u2014recently disclosed financial statements showed that Trump embarked on a new deal<\/a> with some Korean developers.<\/p>\n