President Donald Trump’s cryptic description of a mystery gift from Iran in the middle of his war with the country has reportedly confounded those close to him.
Trump, 79, revealed on Tuesday that he had been given a secret “prize” from Iran as part of negotiations to end the brutal conflict.
“They gave us a present, and the present arrived today,” Trump told reporters. “It was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money.”
However Trump, who usually delights in sharing gifts given to him, was uncharacteristically coy about his latest bounty.
“I’m not gonna tell you what that present is, but it was a very significant prize,” he said. When asked if it was nuclear-related, he said no, then added, “It was oil and gas-related, and they did a very nice thing, because what it showed me is that we’re dealing with the right people.”
CBS News’ senior White House correspondent Jennifer Jacobs said Trump told her the gift was “related to the flow, to the Strait.”
The Strait of Hormuz, the shipping lane through which around 20 percent of global oil supplies usually pass, has been blocked amid the Middle East chaos after the U.S. and Israel started their war with Iran last month.
Trump’s comments about the mystery gift have puzzled some in Trump’s camp, a new report from Politico says. “Several people close to the White House said they were baffled by the president’s remarks,” according to the West Wing Playbook.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
Suggestions that Trump may have been referencing the Omega Trader, a supertanker carrying 2 million barrels of Iraqi crude oil, were downplayed by Bloomberg after reports that it had successfully crossed the Strait.
Its manager told Bloomberg that while the ship’s signal appeared to show it had reached Mumbai, none of the company’s vessels had actually made the crossing.
The publication highlighted signal jamming during the war, which has affected vessel tracking in and around the Strait.
The confusion over Trump’s secret gift follows the president’s conflicting comments on the Iran war.
“We’ve won this war,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, before claiming, “The only one who likes to keep it going is the fake news.”
Though Trump declined to rule out putting U.S. troops in Iran, the Pentagon has ordered several thousand paratroopers from the Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East as part of the conflict. The Washington Post said it is not yet clear if they will be deployed on the ground in Iran itself.
The troops are part of the “Immediate Response Force,” comprised of around 3,000 soldiers on standby to be sent anywhere in the world within 18 hours.
The New York Times suggested the paratroopers could be used to seize Iran’s main export hub, Kharg Island.
The island, located 20 miles off Iran’s northern Gulf coast, is the country’s economic lifeline, handling up to 95 percent of its crude oil exports.
Trump gleefully posted after U.S. forces “obliterated” military targets on the island on March 13. He has also threatened to “wipe out” the oil infrastructure on the island.
hOn Tuesday, when asked which country was likely to control the Strait if the war ended, Trump replied, “We’ll have control of anything we want.”
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, 70, appeared on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream last weekend where he called for Trump to send U.S. troops into Kharg Island.
“Here’s what I’d tell President Trump,” Graham said. “Keep it up for a few more weeks, take Kharg Island, where all of the resources they have to produce oil (are). Control that island. Let this regime die on a vine.”
