US President Donald Trump vowed “very hard” strikes on Iran Thursday and promised to take the country’s key oil infrastructure, in what would be a major escalation in the war with the Islamic republic.

Trump threatened “bigger, more powerful” attacks on what would be a third successive night, as he pushes Tehran to turn their increasingly nominal ceasefire into a permanent peace deal.

“The United States will be hitting Iran… VERY HARD TONIGHT,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.

“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,” he added.

Kharg Island is at the heart of Iran’s oil export industry, a lynchpin of the country’s battered economy. It sits off Iran’s Gulf coast, hundreds of kilometres northwest of the narrow, strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Trump talked about a possible seizure of the island earlier in the US-Israeli war in Iran, which began on February 28.

The United States toppled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January and now says it has control of its oil industry, a strategy that Trump has repeatedly said he wants to repeat with Iran.

Trump gave no details of how the United States would seize Iran’s oil terminals, but any such operation would almost certainly require the involvement of US ground troops.

– ‘Crazy’ –

But the US leader himself appeared divided on whether to go ahead with the move, in a telephone interview with Fox News shortly after his social media post.

“Look, my preference has always been take Kharg Island,” Trump told Fox, before adding: “I don’t know that America has the stomach for it, to be honest.”

Trump insisted that “I don’t want to have boots on the ground” but said that “if I wanted to, we could put a small group of soldiers and take over the whole place.”

He also said he preferred not to hit Iran’s civilian infrastructure, after previously threatening to strike power plants and bridges.

“I’d rather not do it, because once you do that, the people suffer,” Trump said.

Trump also vented his increasing frustration with Iran for failing to agree a deal to end the war, open the Strait of Hormuz and agree not to develop a nuclear weapon.

“The whole thing is crazy, and they’re really in submission, they just don’t know it yet,” Trump said.

“We are talking to them.”

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent meanwhile vowed Thursday to use Iranian funds to pay for damage that the country causes to Gulf allies.

Iran and the United States have traded fire in recent days as the ceasefire looks ever shakier.

“Any damage it inflicts on our allies in the Gulf will be paid for with funds extracted from Iranian Accounts,” Bessent wrote on X.

Bessent added that “any tolls paid to the Persian Gulf Strait Authority will be offset by funds extracted from their accounts.”

The authority is Iran’s new agency to collect fees for transiting the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for energy transit that Tehran has essentially closed off since early in the war.

AFP