U.S. President Donald Trump said he could “take the oil in Iran” and seize Iran’s export hub of Kharg Island, as hostilities in the Middle East continue for a fifth week,
CNBC reports.
Trump told the Financial Times on Sunday that his “preference would be to take the oil,” comparing it to the U.S. military operation in Venezuela earlier this year where the U.S. effectively gained control of the Latin American country’s oil industry, following the capture of its leader Nicolás Maduro.
The Trump administration has weighed sending ground forces to the Kharg Island, according to Reuters, with one of its sources warning that such an operation would be “very risky.” Tehran has the ability to reach the island with missiles and drones.
In the FT interview, Trump said that “my favourite 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.”
“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 White House and the U.S. State Department didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Trump’s remarks come as the conflict between the U.S.-Israel and Iran expands across the region, raising risks to energy and infrastructure, and sending crude oil prices surging.
