WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump relied on his gut and largely side-stepped diplomatic coordination as he made the decision to launch strikes on Iran with Israel. But now with the war’s economic and geopolitical consequences unfurling rapidly, he’s cajoling allies and other global powers to help mop up the mess.
Trump says he’s asked roughly a half-dozen other countries to send warships to reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz, a consequential waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s traded oil flows. So far, none has committed. Trump even indicated he would use his long-planned trip to China to pressure Beijing to help with a new coalition meant to get oil tanker traffic moving through the strait — a notion that his Treasury secretary later downplayed.
“I’m demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory, because it is their own territory,” Trump told reporters on Sunday night about the strait, while arguing that the shipping channel is not something the United States needs because of its own access to oil.
It’s the type of bullying to action that has secured key foreign policy wins for Trump in his second term, like prompting nearly all NATO countries to up their defense spending last year after the Republican president spent years accusing allies of freeloading off American largess, and using tariffs to extract investments and concessions from trade partners.
But with oil prices soaring and the Middle East rattled by violence, there’s little inclination from other countries to heed Trump’s call.
China is noncommittal. France is a maybe on escorting ships, when “circumstances permit.” Britain is unlikely to dispatch a warship and won’t be “drawn into the wider war.”
White House: Trump ‘right’ to demand help with Strait of Hormuz
Yet the pressure campaign from the White House is continuing.
Trump’s top spokeswoman, when asked why other nations that were neither consulted nor involved should put their troops in danger to secure the Strait of Hormuz, argued that other countries were benefiting directly by Trump’s attempt to disarm the Iranian regime.
“This is something not just the United States but the entire Western world has agreed with for many, many years,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday. “So I think the president is absolutely right to call on these countries to do more to help the United States to reopen the Strait of Hormuz so that we can stop this terrorist regime from restricting the free flow of energy.”
Separately, Trump signaled in a Sunday interview with the Financial Times that “we’d like to know” before he leaves for a late-March summit in Beijing whether China will help secure the strait because of its reliance on Middle East oil.
“We may delay,” he said in the interview.
Yet calling off the face-to-face visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping could have its own major economic consequences as the relations between the two superpowers remain fraught over tariffs and other issues. In a CNBC interview Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said any delay would not be due to disputes over the strait and explicitly urged investors not to react negatively should Trump put off his trip.
“If the meeting for some reason is rescheduled, it would be rescheduled because of logistics,” Bessent said from Paris, where he was meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng for a new round of trade talks that were meant to pave the way for the trip. “The president wants to remain in D.C. to coordinate the war effort and that, you know, traveling abroad at a time like this may not be optimal.”
Bessent says US will reaffirm ‘stability’ of China relationship
A Foreign Ministry spokesperson in Beijing has said only that China and the U.S. have maintained communication on Trump’s visit. “Head-of-state diplomacy plays an irreplaceable strategic guiding role in China-U.S. relations,” Lin Jian said at a daily briefing.
“We had a very good two days here,” Bessent said from Paris, adding a statement “reaffirming the stability” between the two countries would be issued “in the next few days.”
In the early days of the Iran conflict, Trump had said U.S. Navy vessels would escort oil tankers through the strait, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, and downplayed the threat posed by Iran. But as oil prices soared, he and his administration have been forced to consider new options — including the idea, broached this weekend, for other countries to join the push with their own warships.
