By Judson Berger
Friday, March 20, 2026
It’s never a good sign when the word “allies” is put in scare quotes.
With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed to most oil tankers, leaders of European and other normally
aligned nations have been conspicuously loath to intervene despite President
Trump’s calls for assistance. He’s responded by questioning their usefulness.
It does not help that the U.S. president shunned
coalition-building before the war or that he spent the early part of 2026
needlessly needling NATO nations over Greenland. “Donald Trump seems to be
learning that gratuitously antagonizing your allies can invite undesirable
consequences,” Noah Rothman writes.
Still, as Noah notes, the present straits over the strait
endanger every nation engaged in the global economy. He urges a reconciliation,
and soon:
Whether the
international community likes it or not, there will be no going back to a
post-war world. Iran is no longer a potential threat to the exploration,
exploitation, and shipping of commodities through the Strait. It is an active
one that the globe — not just America and Israel — will have to contain for
however long the Islamic Republic has left. That will be a commercial
enterprise as well as a military venture, and the sooner the rest of the world
acknowledges its role, the better. . . .
Whatever hard
feelings exist between the Trump White House and America’s allies, events
should compel everyone to paper over those disagreements. There’s a war to win,
and the whole world has a stake in it — whether they like it or not.
For now, the tensions over Iran only further strain
creaking Western alliances. On Friday, Trump called NATO a “PAPER TIGER,” saying of nations’ reluctance
to contribute militarily on Hormuz, “COWARDS, and we will REMEMBER!” Trump had declared earlier in the week that “WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP
OF ANYONE” and described NATO as a “one-way street” where protection is
concerned, after facing frosty responses to appeals for help:
• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the U.K. is
working with other nations to “restore freedom of navigation” while refusing to
be “drawn into the wider war.” (British advisers reportedly have been sent to U.S. Central Command in
Florida to discuss options for the strait.)
• France has offered to help escort tankers — but only “once the core of the bombings has stopped,” not “in the
current context.” President Emmanuel Macron may turn to the United Nations.
• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, normally seen as
Trump-friendly, has balked at getting involved.
• “Nothing to do with NATO,” a spokesman for Germany’s chancellor decreed of the conflict.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius rejected the possibility of German military involvement and
scoffed at the idea that “one or two handfuls of European frigates” could
accomplish anything that “the powerful American Navy cannot.” He urged
diplomatic efforts to ensure security through the strait.
While the statements out of Berlin dripped with sloshing
steins of derision, they actually point to a key hurdle in the effort to
assemble an after-the-fact coalition. Rich Lowry notes that while Trump would like to put
together an international force to break Iran’s grip on the waterway, “allied
countries aren’t going to think it’s possible to reopen the Strait if we
haven’t managed to do it on our own.” That is, America is the nation with a
world-class navy, not, say, Germany.
Per NR’s editorial, “There has to be urgency about reopening
the strait, and the administration clearly feels it,” hence the attacks on and threats against Kharg Island and potential plans to escort
tankers.
Actively involved allies would be useful. In their
partial defense, MBD explains why the Europeans have a right to be miffed. Dan McLaughlin
also observes that the tensions raise a fundamental question
about the NATO alliance itself: “Do the member nations of NATO see the
organization as a true community of interests, or simply a set of bilateral
deals that require continual renegotiation?”
At least Estonia is “ready to talk.”
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