President Donald Trump on Tuesday blasted longtime US allies he says are not doing enough to help the US and Israel in their war against Iran, now saying their help was never needed after spending days publicly asking for their help.
“Due to the fact that we have achieved Military Success, we do not ‘need,’ or desire, the help of NATO Countries – WE NEVER DID!”he wrote on Truth Social. “Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea.” In fact, speaking as the President of the United States, the Most Powerful Country in the World, WE DON’T NEED ANYONE’S HELP!
United StatesMajor allies have largely opposed the president’s callto play a major role in the war in the Middle East, whichThe US and Israel launched in Februaryquestioning Iran presented an imminent threat.
In recent days, Trump has repeatedly asked international allies – and other geopolitical enemies, including China – for help in securing the Strait of Hormuz. The waterway is vital for trade, and disruptions in the global energy market have sent oil prices soaring.
International leaders largely rejected the call from the president.
“We did not start this war,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Monday. Trump’s push for European help was tantamount to “blasphemy,” Luxembourg’s Deputy Prime Minister Xavier Bettel told reporters. President of FranceEmmanuel Macron blocked the strikeregarding Iran as illegitimate just days after the conflict began. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said that Britain “it will not be drawn into a wider war” in the region.
At the same time,some of Trump’s domestic allies are worriedthat securing the Strait of Hormuz and establishing an international oil trade may require the deployment of American troops to Iran.
The president, who has long questioned the value of NATO and contemplated withdrawing the United States from the alliance, on Sunday.he warned that NATO alliesthey faced “a dire future” if they refrained from aiding US efforts to reopen the waterway. But their silence is not surprising, he wrote on his social network on Tuesday.
“I am not surprised by their action, however, because I always considered NATO, where we spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year to protect these countries, to be one way – We will protect them, but they will not help us at all, especially, in times of crisis,” Trump said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.), a key proponent of the operation in Iran and a close ally of the president, said he spoke with the president by phone on Tuesday. Grahamwrote on X Tuesdaythat “I have never heard him so angry in my life.”
“I share that anger because of what is at stake,” he said. “The arrogance of our allies to suggest that Iran with a nuclear weapon is of little concern and that military action to prevent the ayatollah from getting a nuclear bomb is our problem not theirs is offensive.”
