In a series of incendiary comments posted to Truth Social and shared during a Fox News interview on Thursday, former President and current U.S. Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump doubled down on threats of expanded military action against Iran, announcing that intensified strikes would launch the same night and openly floating a plan to seize Iran’s critical Kharg Island to take control of the country’s oil and gas markets— a move that military and geopolitical analysts widely agree would require a sustained ground troop deployment.
In his Truth Social post, Trump claimed Iran’s entire naval, air, radar and air defense networks, alongside the vast majority of its offensive military capacity, had already been destroyed, writing that the U.S. would strike the country “VERY HARD TONIGHT”. The announcement came after days of ongoing U.S. strikes that have already targeted Iranian military infrastructure and accidentally damaged two water reservoirs, cutting off access to clean drinking water for roughly 20,000 Iranian civilians.
Kharg Island, the linchpin of Iran’s crude oil export network that handles approximately 90% of the country’s total crude exports, has become a repeated target of Trump’s rhetorical aggression amid soaring global oil prices, triggered by Iran’s retaliatory blockade of the Strait of Hormuz following the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli coordinated war against the country. The current energy price shock has driven U.S. inflation to its highest level in more than three years.
“At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America,” Trump wrote in his post. During his subsequent Fox News interview, he doubled down on this framing, explicitly tying the proposed seizure to economic gain for the U.S., echoing his earlier rhetoric about the 2019 Venezuelan intervention, where he stated the goal of U.S. action was to “get the oil flowing” to American energy corporations.
“My preference has always been to take Kharg Island,” Trump told Fox News. “I don’t know that America has the stomach for it, to be honest with you. You’d make a fortune…. We did it with Venezuela. Venezuela’s worked out great for everybody. We’ve taken millions and millions of barrels of oil out of Venezuela. We’ve brought them to Houston and various other places, Louisiana. Refineries that we have that are incredible, they’ve gone 24 hours a day. Making a fortune.”
Despite this brazen framing, Trump acknowledged that recent national polling shows a strong majority of U.S. voters oppose expanded military action against Iran, and admitted he was unsure the country “has the appetite” for a ground invasion of Kharg Island. According to a May 2026 survey conducted by the Institute for Global Affairs, just 18% of U.S. adults support deploying ground troops to seize and hold the island, a policy that even a majority of Republican respondents oppose. Administration plans for a potential Kharg Island invasion were first drafted as early as March, but were shelved after U.S. military officials warned of the risk of massive American casualties, particularly after Iranian forces laid extensive anti-personnel and anti-armor mines across the island in preparation for a potential assault. Even with widespread public opposition, Trump maintained Thursday that the invasion would move forward if he chooses to approve it, saying it is “a guarantee if I want to do it.”
Geopolitical risk experts have uniformly panned the proposal as reckless and strategically senseless. Brett Erickson, managing principal of Obsidian Risk Advisors and a leading expert on sanctions and global geopolitical risk, called the plan “grim and stupid.” Erickson noted that Iranian oil exports through Kharg Island have already dropped to nearly negligible levels amid ongoing conflict and blockades, with just one cargo vessel loaded at the terminal over the past five weeks. He added that as a fixed, stationary target, the island would face constant drone and missile attacks from Iranian forces even after a U.S. seizure. “We would likely, in the absolute best case, lose hundreds of lives,” Erickson said. “Worst case? Well into the thousands. Would it change anything about the war? No. It literally would not matter. The only thing to be gained is a lot of Americans dying for an oil export hub that is not being used, and that is blockaded anyway.”
Reactions from Capitol Hill have been deeply divided, with most top Republican leaders declining to embrace the plan. House Speaker Mike Johnson, when asked by reporters about Trump’s threats, downplayed the proposal, suggesting Trump was merely sending a strategic message to adversaries and adding “I would not put too much stock in the details of that right now.”
The proposal does have support from high-profile Republican war hawks, most notably Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has been credited with pushing Trump to launch the current war against Iran at Israel’s behest. Graham, who has previously compared seizing Kharg Island to the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima — a conflict that left more than 26,000 U.S. troops wounded or killed — praised Trump for raising the idea Thursday, thanking the president for “going the extra mile to obtain a diplomatic solution to the Iranian conflict.”
Democratic lawmakers have pushed back hard against the threat, arguing that an invasion of Kharg Island without formal congressional approval would be a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution. “American troops would die during the invasion,” said Rep. Ted Lieu of California. “And then every day Iran would try to kill more American troops on Kharg Island.” Last week, Lieu joined four House Republicans and all House Democrats to pass a bipartisan war powers resolution that would block Trump from continuing military action against Iran without explicit congressional authorization. Following Trump’s latest threats, Lieu called on the Senate to immediately take up and pass the House-passed resolution.