US President Donald Trump said he wanted to “take the oil” in Iran, possibly seizing the export hub of Kharg Island, the Financial Times reported.

Trump’s interview with the FT comes as thousands of US troops massed in the Persian Gulf region, including an amphibious assault team that arrived on March 28. Portions of the 82nd Airborne is also on its way.

Trump told the Financial Times on March 29 that “his preference would be to take the oil”.

He compared the effort with the operation in Venezuela in January, when the US captured the South American country’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, and plans to control its oil industry.

Brent crude traded higher than US$115 a barrel, near its highest level since the war began.

The US and Israel have been hammering Iran with strikes for four weeks, and Iran has retaliated in Israel, on US military targets and on industrial sites in the US’s Gulf allies like the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

“To be honest with you, my favorite 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,” he told the paper.

Unlike in Venezuela, taking Iran’s oil would involve invading and holding its main export hub, Kharg Island, which also houses an Iranian naval base.

“Our men are waiting for American soldiers to enter on the ground,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on March 29, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

Trump told FT that taking Kharg Island “would also mean we had to be there for a while”.

Asked about the state of Iranian defences on Kharg Island he said: “I don’t think they have any defence. We could take it very easily.”