President Donald Trump made several telling remarks Sunday in an interview with the Financial Times, revealing some of his administration’s potential war plans as it relates to Iran.
“To be honest with you, my favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran but some stupid people back in the US say: ‘why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people,” Trump told the Financial Times, the outlet reported.
Trump told the outlet that his “preference” in his administration’s war against Iran would be for the United States to “take the oil," invoking a comparison to the U.S. takeover of Venezuela’s oil industry in January when the Trump administration halted Venezuelan oil shipments to the Cuban government, and started oil shipments to Israel “for the first time in years.”
Trump also spoke to the possibility of the U.S. military seizing Kharg Island, an Iranian island critical to the nation’s oil industry.
“Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options,” Trump said, speaking with the Financial Times. “It would also mean we had to be [in Kharg Island] for a while. I don’t think they have any defense. We could take it very easily.”
Trump’s war against Iran has sent oil prices soaring as Iran continues to block U.S.-aligned vessels from accessing the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping channel through which 20% of the world’s oil trade flows. Trump has reportedly been looking for a way out of the war, though one former Trump security advisor warned that such an off-ramp may no longer exist.