President Donald Trump stated on Sunday that he prefers to take control of Iran’s oil and is considering seizing Kharg Island, which is the export hub responsible for over 90% of the country’s oil exports.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Trump said his “favorite thing” would be to take the oil, but that some critics at home oppose the idea.
“To be honest with you, my favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran, but some stupid people back in the U.S. say, ‘Why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people,” Trump reportedly said.
Trump added that the United States has “a lot of options” on Kharg Island, a coral island off Iran’s coast that serves as the centerpiece of its oil industry.
“Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options,” Trump said. “It would also mean we had to be there [in Kharg Island] for a while.”
The comments are among Trump’s most direct on the subject. Earlier this month, he sidestepped a question on whether he planned to seize Iran’s oil, saying only that people had thought about it with Venezuela, “but it’s too soon to talk about that,” NBC News reported.
In January, the United States captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and took greater influence over that country’s oil industry.
The remarks came as the war with Iran entered its fifth week. The United States and Israel began striking targets there on February 28, and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — which carries about 20% of the world’s oil exports — has since halted. Oil prices have risen sharply, with U.S. crude exceeding $100 a barrel. International benchmark Brent crude was on track Monday for its steepest monthly gain on record.
Trump told the Financial Times the U.S. has “about 3,000 targets left — we’ve bombed 13,000 targets — and another couple of thousand targets to go. A deal could be made fairly quickly.”
He has paused attacks on Iran’s energy plants for 10 days, setting a deadline of April 6.
On Monday, Trump posted on Truth Social that the United States is “in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran.”
“Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched,’” Trump wrote.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has called a U.S. 15-point proposal “excessive and unreasonable” and denied holding direct talks with Washington.
