President Trump told the Financial Times on Sunday that the United States could take Iran's oil and declined to rule out seizing Kharg Island, the critical terminal where around 90 percent of Iran's oil exports are processed.

"To be honest with you, my favourite 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."

The island, roughly one-third the size of Manhattan, sits at the center of Tehran's economic lifeline. Trump claimed the US could take it "very easily," adding, "I don't think they have any defense."

He left the door open without committing to a timeline or specific operation. "Maybe we [will] take Kharg Island, maybe we don't. We have a lot of options."

Oil prices responded immediately. By Monday, Brent crude had climbed to $116 per barrel, the highest since March 19, the Post reported.

Maximum pressure with real teeth

The remarks land in the middle of an escalating standoff. Earlier this month, Trump said US airstrikes had obliterated every military target on the island. More than 3,500 US troops have arrived in the Middle East, and the president has paused attacks on Iran's energy infrastructure until April 6, creating a narrow window for diplomacy.

Trump suggested the approach could mirror what happened when Venezuelan tyrant Nicolás Maduro was deposed, which saw the US take control of oil exports. The comparison is telling. It signals an administration that views energy leverage not as an abstract bargaining chip but as something you physically hold.

The president acknowledged a seizure would require sustained commitment. "It would also mean we had to be there [on the island] for a while," he told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday. That kind of candor is worth noting. It's not the language of bluster. It's the language of someone who has weighed costs and hasn't flinched.

Iran's bluster meets reality

Tehran rejected the 15-point ceasefire plan the US put forward last week. That rejection tells you everything about who wants a resolution and who wants a confrontation.

Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, struck a theatrical tone. According to IRNA, he warned:

"The enemy, openly, sends messages of negotiation and dialogue, but secretly is planning a ground attack."

He then escalated further, claiming Washington is "unaware that our men are waiting for American soldiers to enter on the ground so they can set them ablaze and punish their regional partners forever."

This is the kind of rhetoric that plays well on state television and poorly on a battlefield. Iran's regime has spent decades perfecting the art of the grandiose threat. What it hasn't done is demonstrate the capacity to follow through against a peer military. Ghalibaf's language reads less like a credible deterrent and more like a government trying to reassure its own population that it still has options.

Sources told CNN last week that Iran has beefed up its defenses, and the regime has moved troops. An Israeli source, quoted by the Jerusalem Post, offered a more measured assessment of the risks: "The hope is that they won't take that risk and will instead fire at the oil fields, but there is no way to know."

That ambiguity is real. But ambiguity cuts both directions, and right now, the United States holds the sharper edge.

Negotiate or don't, but understand the alternative

Trump was characteristically blunt about the diplomatic track. He told reporters he thinks a deal is likely but refused to guarantee one. "I think we'll make a deal with them, pretty sure, but it's possible we won't."

Then came the line that should focus minds in Tehran: "You never know with Iran, because we negotiate with them and then we have to blow them up."

For years, the Washington foreign policy establishment treated Iran as a problem to be managed through incremental concessions, pallets of cash, and agreements that Tehran violated before the ink dried. The theory was that engagement would moderate the regime. It didn't. Iran's nuclear program advanced. Its proxies metastasized across the region. Its rhetoric grew more apocalyptic, not less.

What Trump is doing is fundamentally different. He's negotiating from a position where the alternative to a deal isn't a stern letter from the State Department. It's the loss of 90 percent of your oil export capacity. That's not recklessness. That's leverage.

The April 6 deadline looms

The pause on strikes against Iran's energy infrastructure expires on April 6. That date now functions as a hard deadline, not just for military planners but for whatever remains of diplomatic channels.

Iran emphatically rejected the ceasefire proposal. More than 3,500 US troops are deployed and positioned. Oil markets are already pricing in the possibility that this goes further. Every signal points in the same direction.

Tehran has a choice: come to the table with something real, or find out what happens when the pause ends. The president has told them plainly what the options are. Whether they believe him is their problem.