Trump Slams NATO Over Hormuz Support Refusal, Embraces Going it Alone

Trump, who has pressed allies to help protect the critical waterway to ease the chokehold on the region’s oil exports, was angered by the lack of U.S. support “even though we are ‘helping’ NATO so much,” and said it was in the allies’ interest to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Trump’s angry response to allies’ refusal to join the war underlined that the conflict, now in its third week and causing repercussions across the global economy, is one that the international community expected to resolve on its own after the US leader launched the war without consultation.

You’d think they’d say: ‘We’d love to send some minesweepers.’ It’s not a big deal,” Trump said. “It didn’t cost a lot of money. But they didn’t do that.”

Trump, who has expressed anger at traditional US allies, has emphasized that he is okay with the consolidating dynamic of the conflict falling largely on his shoulders alone, for better or worse.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been encouraging him to do so for months, Trump increasingly suggests that the path to conflict was chosen by one man. It started based on what Trump described as “feeling” about the threat posed by Iran, and said it would end when his instinct said it was time.

“We don’t really need help,” Trump told reporters as he hosted Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin for his visit to the White House on St. Patrick’s Day.

Trump complained that NATO allies counted on tens of billions of dollars in U.S. support for Ukraine to fend off Russia’s invasion, but they failed to return the favor of helping the United States and Israel in their efforts to neutralize Iran, which has posed a threat to the Middle East and beyond for years. He added that the United States is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to strengthen European and Asian defenses.

Later Tuesday, the U.S. military announced it had fired multiple 5,000-pound deep-penetration bombs at hardened Iranian missile sites along Iran’s coastline near the strait. According to US Central Command, Iran’s anti-ship cruise missiles targeting these areas posed a risk to international shipping in the strait.

Trump has a hot and cold relationship with the alliance; Trump believes that the United States has become too dependent on World War II. A cornerstone of the post-World War II national security framework, he slammed the bloc’s members for spending too little and even questioned the United States’ commitment to the mutual defense charter in NATO’s founding treaty, which states that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all members.

NATO remains a defensive, not offensive, alliance, and NATO has said it has no plans to join the US-led war with Iran. But NATO troops were deployed in Afghanistan for 18 years, and an air campaign in 2011 helped topple Libya’s late leader Muammar Gaddafi.

“We will protect them, but they won’t do anything for us, especially in our time of need,” Trump said on social media.

Trump directs most of his anger at NATO

Trump said allies in Japan, Australia and South Korea, as well as China, have rejected calls to help secure the strait, a critical waterway through which about 20% of the world’s crude oil passes each day in typical times. Asia is the region most exposed to trade disruption because it is heavily reliant on imported fuel, much of which is transported through the straits.

The European Union’s top diplomat disagreed with Trump, saying the 27-nation bloc did not want to be dragged into the US-Israeli war against Iran and generally rejected Trump’s request to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz.

“This is not Europe’s war. We did not start the war. We were not consulted,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Tuesday, a day after chairing talks among member states on Trump’s warship request. he said.

“We don’t know what the aims of this war are,” Kallas said. “Member states have no desire to be dragged into this situation.”

Trump called the moment a “big test” for NATO and said the alliance had made a “very stupid mistake” by rejecting him.

Trump was asked by a reporter whether he was rethinking the United States’ relationship with NATO in light of the reaction to the Iran war, perhaps even considering exiting the military alliance.

“This is definitely something we need to consider. I don’t need Congress to make this decision,” Trump said. “I don’t have anything on my mind right now, but I’m not too excited,” he added.

It is debatable whether Trump can withdraw from NATO on his own. Congress passed a law requiring congressional permission to leave the military alliance in 2023. Experts have said Trump may try to get around the law, perhaps by asserting presidential authority over foreign policy, to get around the law.

Trump’s stance that America’s long-standing support for NATO should be reciprocated at a time when the US is asking for help from Iran is met with harsh resistance.

French President Emmanuel Macron said his country was ready to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, but only as part of a separate mission from the current Middle East war.

“We are not a party to the conflict and therefore France will never take part in operations to reopen or liberate the Strait of Hormuz,” Macron said. he said.

Trump belittled Macron’s stance. “He will be leaving office very soon,” Trump said of the French president, whose second five-year term is scheduled to end in May 2027.

Trump also said he was “disappointed” in British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The prime minister had initially prevented American planes from using British bases in the attacks on Iran, which began on Saturday. He later agreed to allow the US to use bases in Britain and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to strike Iran’s ballistic missiles and storage sites, but not to strike other targets.

He also lashed out at Irish President Catherine Connolly when asked about her criticism that US and Israeli operations were “deliberate attacks on international law”.

“Look, she’s lucky I exist,” Trump said of Connolly, who is a woman.

Yet even though Trump has decided that the United States no longer needs outside military assistance to secure the strait, the State Department has reached out to numerous countries seeking support in isolating Iran by designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations and taking actions that will result in sanctions against these groups and their members.

A cable sent to all U.S. diplomatic missions on Monday asked American diplomats in countries that have not yet made such appointments to act quickly, given the widespread retaliation against a U.S.-Israeli military operation launched by Iran over the past two weeks.

“Now is the time for other nations to take concrete action against Iran, including designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxy Hezbollah as terrorist organizations,” said the cable, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.