Trump to FT:

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.

READ MORE

Trump to FT:

Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options.

I don’t think they have any defence. We could take it very easily.

Trump:

Big day in Iran. Many long sought after targets have been taken out and destroyed by our GREAT MILITARY, the finest and most lethal in the World.

Trump on Iran:

They gave us, I think out of a sign of respect, 20 boats of oil, big boats of oil going through the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump on Iran:

You never know with Iran, because we negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up.

Trump on Iran:

I think we’ll make a deal with them. Pretty sure. But it’s possible we won’t.

Trump on Iran:

I think we’ve had regime change, we can’t do much better than that.

Trump:

The military is building a big complex under the ballroom.

Trump on Iran:

I do see a deal with Iran. It could be soon.

Reporter: Are you considering still putting boots on the ground in Iran?

Trump: I just have lots of alternatives.

Trump on Cuba:

Cuba is going to be next. Cuba is a mess. It’s a failing country.

They’re going to be next within a short period of time — it’s going to fail.

And we will be there to help it out.

China's Xi Jinping invited Cheng Li-wun, head of Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang, to visit China.

She accepted.

It’s the first such visit in about a decade and signals renewed China–KMT engagement.

Trump on Iran:

They’re going to give up nuclear weapons. They’re going to give us the nuclear dust.

They’re going to do everything that we want to do. And you know what? They’re going to go on and maybe have a great country again.

But if they don’t do that, they’re not going to have a country.

Reporter: There’s a report that the U.S. is going to let a Russian oil tanker go to Cuba. Is that true?

Trump: I told them if a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem with that.

Reporter: Do you worry that that helps Putin?

Trump: Does it help him? Why? He loses one boatload of oil — that’s all it is. It’s fine.

If he wants to do that, and if other countries want to do it, it doesn’t bother me much. It’s not going to have an impact. Cuba is finished.

They have a bad regime. They have very bad and corrupt leadership. And whether or not they get a boat of oil, it’s not going to matter.

Reporter: Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz and charging tolls, what do you think about that?

Trump: We could close that up in two minutes. We could close that up so fast your head would spin.

The near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz has left roughly 20,000 seafarers stranded in the Gulf, with at least 22 civilian ships struck and eight crew members killed since the conflict began.

One sailor said they were “stuck and there were missiles firing over and blasts everywhere.”

Although shipping groups agreed crews would get bonus pay, a “right to refuse sailing,” and employer-paid repatriation, unions say only “30 to 40 per cent” of ships are complying.

Some sailors allege owners are “forcing us to continue to do cargo operations” despite safety concerns.

Source: FT

Trump on Iran:

Saudi Arabia is fighting back hard. Qatar is fighting back. UAE is fighting back. Kuwait’s fighting back. Bahrain’s fighting back. They’re all fighting back.

We’re in very strong communication with all of those countries, and they’ve all been fighting.

Deadly Blow from Iran to Kuwait’s Critical Energy Facility

An Iranian attack struck a power and water desalination plant in Kuwait. An Indian worker was killed and significant structural damage was reported.

READ MORE

UK activist group Led By Donkeys used a speedboat to approach billionaire Larry Ellison’s $160 million superyacht Musashi off the French Riviera and renamed it “The Trump Propagandist.”