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Fortune
Fortune
Eva Roytburg

'Blackmail is also not what I wish for': America’s allies are ghosting Trump on Strait of Hormuz

U.S. President Donald Trump listens during a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky following their meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club on December 28, 2025 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images))

More than two weeks into a war President Donald Trump started without asking allies for buy-in, he is now asking for backup, and mostly getting left on read.

Trump spent the weekend demanding that allies, China, and other Asia-Pacific nations send warships to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which a fifth of the world’s oil normally flows. He even warned Sunday that NATO faces a “very bad future” if allies don’t step up, marking another threat just two months after he precipitated an existential crisis for the alliance over Greenland.

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