US President Donald Trump said that he wants to “take the oil in Iran” and could seize Kharg Island, the country’s oil export hub. In an interview with the Financial Times, Trump said, “To be honest with you, my favourite thing is to take the oil in Iran,” comparing the US move to Venezuela, where Washington intends to control the oil industry “indefinitely” after it forcibly seized President Nicolas Maduro in January, Xinhua news agency reported.

Taking Iranian oil would involve seizing Kharg Island, through which over 90 per cent of Iran’s oil is exported, the Financial Times reported, warning that such “an assault” risks raising casualties and prolonging the war.

“Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options,” it quoted Trump as saying. “It would also mean we had to be there for a while.”

He added that he believed Iran had little or no defence on the island. “We could take it very easily,” he said.

Trump’s remarks came as he steps up the US military buildup in the Middle East while weighing a military operation to extract nearly 1,000 pounds of uranium from Iran, according to US officials.

He has also encouraged his advisers to press Iran to agree to surrender the material as a condition for ending the war, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing an anonymous source familiar with Trump’s thinking.

The Pentagon is reportedly deploying up to 10,000 additional ground troops to the region, with the US Central Command announcing Saturday that over 3,500 troops, including 2,500 Marines, had arrived in the Middle East.

Despite the threat, Trump noted that indirect talks between the United States and Iran via Pakistani “emissaries” were making progress. “A deal could be made fairly quickly,” he said.

Oil prices have surged since the United States and Israel launched massive attacks on Iran on February 28, with Brent crude rising as high as $119.5 a barrel in March, the highest since June 2022.