Yuri Grips / EPA
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and US President Donald Trump, in the Oval Office of the White House
The US president wants the West and China to help in the conflict with Iran and used Ukraine as an argument: “We didn’t need to help them. Ukraine is thousands of kilometers away from us… But we helped them.”
O Strait of Hormuza strategic waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil passes daily, was closed by Iran in response to US attacks.
Donald Trump warned that NATO will face “a very bad future” if allied countries do not help restore the passage of ships through the strait.
“It is appropriate that those who benefit from the strait help ensure that nothing bad happens there,” said the US president, in an interview with , this Sunday, highlighting that Europe and China depend on oil from the Gulf.
“If there is no response, or if the response is negative, I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO,” he added.
Not Saturday, Trump asked several countries to help by sending ships of war to the Strait of Hormuz to keep it “open and safe”, after Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khameneihaving announced that the strategic waterway would remain closed.
“I hope that China, France, Japan, South Korea, United Kingdom and others affected by this artificial restriction send ships to the region, so that the Strait of Hormuz ceases to be a threat from a completely leaderless nation”, he wrote on the Truth Social platform.
Trump uses Ukraine as an argument
Despite Trump’s public appeal, the response from allies has been lukewarm, leading the president to refer to war in Ukraine and saying, “We didn’t need to help them with Ukraine. Ukraine is thousands of miles away from us… But we help them.”
“Now we’ll see if they help us. Because I said a long time ago that we would be there for them, but they wouldn’t be there for us. And I’m not sure if they will be,” he said in the interview.
The President also referred to his planned visit to China later this month, suggesting that it could be postponed and that the meeting with the Chinese President Xi Jinping would have to wait.
Donald Trump also called on China to unblock the Strait of Hormuz and indicated that he hopes Chinese aid arrives before his visit, his first to Beijing in his second term.
“I think China should also help, because it gets 90% of its oil from the strait,” he concluded.
