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Trump Suggests Seizing Iran’s Kharg Island, Sparking Oil Market Surge

Trump Suggests Seizing Iran’s Kharg Island, Sparking Oil Market Surge
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U.S. President Donald Trump said he wants to “take the oil” in Iran and suggested the United States could seize Kharg Island, the country’s main oil export hub, in comments that jolted energy markets and deepened global alarm over the expanding Middle East war cnbc. Brent crude briefly pushed above $116 a barrel and U.S. benchmark WTI neared $103 after the remarks, which came as U.S. forces and Iran continued exchanging strikes across the region cnbc.

Trump’s comments, reported Sunday in an interview with the Financial Times, marked the most explicit suggestion yet that Washington might move from bombing Iranian military sites on Kharg to physically taking control of the island and its oil facilities cnbc +1. Kharg handles around 90% of Iran’s crude exports and has already been hit by U.S. strikes that Trump said “totally obliterated” military targets while sparing energy infrastructure so far nytimes +1. Tehran has warned any attack on its oil terminals would trigger retaliation against U.S.-linked energy assets across the Gulf pbs.

How a Threat to “Take the Oil” Raises Legal and Diplomatic Red Lines

International-law experts said any attempt to seize Kharg Island or expropriate Iranian oil would cross a fundamental legal boundary. The UN Charter bars the forcible acquisition of another state’s territory or resources, and “a state cannot lawfully seize territory belonging to another sovereign without that state's consent,” noted one legal scholar in a recent analysis of similar U.S. actions news18.

Unlike past U.S. seizures of sanctioned Venezuelan tankers, which Washington framed as maritime law-enforcement, occupying an Iranian island would amount to an international armed conflict and likely an unlawful use of force absent a clear self‑defense case or UN Security Council mandate, specialists said washingtonpost +1. Such a move could leave the U.S. facing global censure at the UN, sharpen tensions with European allies already reluctant to join offensive operations in the Gulf, and saddle Washington with long‑term obligations as an occupying power washingtonpost +1.

Regional Security and Oil-Market Risks Around Kharg Island

Kharg’s vulnerability has turned it into a focal point for both war planners and traders. The island’s jetties and storage tanks are the loading point for roughly 1.1–1.5 million barrels per day of Iranian exports in recent weeks, according to tanker-tracking data, making it central to global supply flows from the Strait of Hormuz, the choke point for about a fifth of seaborne oil trade nytimes +1. Even limited damage or a prolonged U.S. occupation could further restrict shipments, amplify price spikes, and inject fresh volatility into already strained supply chains, energy analysts warned cnbc +1.

Iran has signaled it would answer any strike on oil infrastructure with attacks on regional energy facilities and shipping, raising the specter of missile and drone barrages on Gulf producers and desalination plants that millions rely on for water pbs +1. Gulf governments, already “trapped between U.S. and Iran” as the conflict spills across borders, fear a scenario in which their territory and export terminals become primary targets if Washington escalates to a ground seizure of Kharg economictimes.

The Bigger Picture

Trump has also insisted a deal with Tehran could come “very quickly” even as he touts the option of taking Iran’s oil and greenlights Pentagon planning for potential weeks of ground operations cnbc +1. That mix of coercive threats and hints of diplomacy has left allies and markets struggling to read U.S. intentions, while Iran signals it will decide when and how the war ends. Whether the Kharg rhetoric remains psychological pressure or turns into an attempt to forcibly control one of the world’s most sensitive oil nodes will shape not only the trajectory of the Iran war, but also the durability of the post‑1945 norm against conquest for resources.