Strong-arming of allies falls short

‘Trump demands help in the Strait of Hormuz, but allies in Europe flatly refuse.

- By John LEICESTER AND EMMA BuRROWS

We've long had your back, now it’s our turn. That is how the famously transactional President Trump is framing his demands that allies help him with the Iran war. He wants to call in IOUs for decades of U.S. security guarantees.

The string of refusals indicates his stock of European goodwill is low. He has put allies through the wringer since returning to the White House, bullying them over tariffs, Greenland and other issues, and disparaging the sacrifices their soldiers made alongside U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Now he’s demanding — not just requesting — that they send warships to help the U.S. unblock the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes — essentially mop up behind the conflagration that he and Israel ignited in the Middle East.

The reply has been a “global raspberry.”

That’s how a veteran French defense analyst, Francois Heisbourg, described allied responses.

No close ally has come forward with immediate help. Britain is flat-out refusing to be drawn into the war. France says the fighting would have to die down first. Others are noncommittal. China, which is not an ally but was also asked to help, is ignoring Trump’s call.

“This is not Europe's war. We didn’t start the war. We were not consulted,” European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Tuesday.

Trump has singled out the refusal from the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Keir Starmer cultivated ties with Trump and reached an early trade deal with the administration but is now among allies who refuse to join a regional war with no clear endgame.

The U.K. “was sort of considered the Rolls-Royce of allies,” Trump said Monday, adding that he'd asked for British minesweeping ships.

“I was not happy with the U.K.,” Trump said. “They should be involved enthusiastically. We've been protecting these countries for years.”