US President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House upon his return to Washington, DC from Florida on Sunday, March 29, 2026. Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI | License Photo
U.S. President Trump said he wanted to take control of Iran’s oil and was weighing a military assault to take and occupy Kharg Island, the country’s main oil export hub, in order to do it.
Speaking to the Financial Times on Sunday, Trump said seizing Iran’s oil was his “favourite thing” and that the move might involve taking and holding the island in the Persian Gulf, adding that he thought American forces would meet little resistance.
“To be honest with you, my favourite thing is to take the oil in Iran,” he said, likening the idea to the military operation in Venezuela in January in which the United States took control of its oil industry and stocks.
Trump derided those in the United States who were skeptical about doing the same in Iran as “stupid people.”
“Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options. It would also mean we had to be there [in Kharg Island] for a while,” Trump said, adding that he didn’t think “they have any defense.”
However, unnamed sources said the mission would be “very risky, given it is within range of Iranian drones and missiles, while not necessarily yielding any material change on the ground in that it would not alter Iran’s effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Even if the United States wanted to ship oil out from Kharg Island to ease global supply pressures pushing the price of Brent Crude above $115 on Monday, tankers moving from U.S.-controlled territory in the Gulf could still have to run the gauntlet of potential Iranian attacks as they navigated the strait.
There was no immediate comment from either the White House or the U.S. State Department on Trump’s remarks, which came as the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran continued to escalate in the region, including an Iranian strike on a Kuwaiti power and desalination plant that killed at least one person.
In a subsequent post on his Truth Social platform, Trump threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s energy infrastructure if “great progress” made in serious discussions with the “new and more reasonable regime” failed to produce a cease-fire in the very near future.
“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,'” wrote Trump.
This week in Washington
President Donald Trump stands with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins during an event celebrating farmers on the South Lawn of the White House on Friday. Photo by Aaron Schwartz/UPI | License Photo
