President Donald Trump on Monday repeated his demand for other countries to send naval assets to help escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz amid Iranian threats to target ships passing through the key chokepoint.
Trump was addressing reporters at an impromptu press conference when he said he’d “strongly encourage” other countries to “get involved with us and get involved quickly — and with great enthusiasm” to help protect traffic in the disputed waterway, which is a key transit point for approximately a fifth of the world’s oil supply.
He also claimed that “numerous countries” have said “they are on the way” since this past weekend, when he took to Truth Social to call on “China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK and others” to “send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a nation that has been totally decapitated.”
“Some are very enthusiastic about it, and some are and some are countries that we’ve helped for many, many years. We’ve protected them from horrible outside sources, and they weren’t that enthusiastic. And the level of enthusiasm matters to me,” he said.
The president also groused about how “other nations whose economies depend on the strait far more than ours” were not getting involved and name-checked Japan, China, South Korea and the European Union bloc, citing apparent statistics about each’s reliance on oil that passes through the strait.
“We get less than 1% of our oil from the strait, and some countries get much more … so we want them to come and help us with the strait,” he said.
Trump also repeated a complaint about how NATO members aren’t responding to his demand and characterized the 32-member alliance as a protection racket under which European member states “owe” the United States for “protecting them from harm’s way.”
“I said … for 40 years, we’re protecting you, and you don’t want to get involved in something that is very minor, very few shots going to be taken, because they don’t have many shots left?”
He then claimed that European reluctance to be dragged into the war he started unprovoked just over two weeks ago bears out his criticism of NATO and his false assertion that NATO members would not respond to an attack on the U.S. even though the alliance’s mutual defense provision has only been activated to defend the United States after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
But when asked about the identities of the countries that were “on the way,” Trump refused to name any countries.
Administration officials have said Trump would soon announce the formation of a multi-national effort to escort commercial shipping vessels through the Strait of Hormuz as his war with Iran enters its third week.
But it remains unclear which, if any, countries have elected to participate.
Earlier today, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told reporters he is in talks with other countries about re-opening the strait while stressing that the U.K. “not be drawn into the wider war.”
“I want to see an end to this war as quickly as possible, because the longer it goes on, the more dangerous the situation becomes, and the worse it is for the cost of living back here at home.”
Italy, Germany, and Greece have also declined to involve their militaries in the conflict, which Trump launched without consulting the U.S. Congress in the face of widespread opposition from much of the American public.
The effective closure of the strait has forced exporters to cancel shipments and shut production at oilfields, creating the world’s biggest ever supply disruption.
Crude oil prices have surged to the highest in four years and those of some fuels to record highs.
