"10 Big Boats Of Oil": Trump Reveals Details Of Mystery Gift From Iran

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the mystery "present" from Iran that he was speaking about earlier this week was 10 "boats of oil". He said that Iran let the boats successfully cross the Strait of Hormuz as a goodwill gesture in negotiations, including some Pakistan-flagged vessels.

Speaking during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Trump said, "They said, to show you the fact that we're real and solid and we're there, we're going to let you have eight boats of oil, eight boats, eight big boats of oil. I guess they were right, and they were real, and I think they were Pakistani-flagged... It ended up being 10 boats."

Trump said that the two additional boats sent by Iran were "to apologise for something they said."

While speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump had said, “It was a very big present, worth a tremendous amount of money, and I'm not going to tell you what the present is, but it was a very significant prize."

Iran has been blocking ships it perceives as linked to the US and Israeli war effort from the Strait of Hormuz, but it's letting a trickle of others through the crucial waterway.

Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi, of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a bloc of six Gulf Arab nations, said Iran was charging for safe passage through the strait.

On Iran charging vessels to pass through the strait, Trump said, "They shouldn't be able to, but they're doing it a little bit".

Trump had expected oil prices to go up more and the stock market to go down more, but he said, "It hasn't been nearly as severe as I thought.”

On Tuesday, Iran said that it would allow "non-hostile vessels" to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. 

The Iranian Embassy in South Africa wrote in a post on X, "Vessels belonging to the United States, Israel, and other parties participating in aggression against Iran shall not be regarded as engaging in normal and non-hostile passage through the Strait of Hormuz."

Trump set a five-day deadline that will expire on Saturday, threatening to "unleash hell" unless Iran met his demands on its nuclear and missile programmes, as well as reopening the Strait of Hormuz.