Donald Trump has ratcheted up the pressure on European allies to help protect the strait of Hormuz, warning that Nato faces a “very bad” future if its members fail to come to Washington’s aid.
The de facto closure of the vital waterway by Tehran in retaliation for airstrikes by the US and Israel has proved catastrophic for global energy and trade flows, causing the largest oil supply disruption in history and soaring global oil prices.
The US president’s call for allies to enter the war by sending ships to the strait to protect commercial shipping vessels and unblock global oil supplies has met a muted response. Australia, France, Japan and the UK are among the countries to have said they have no plans to send ships.
Trump told the Financial Times in an interview: “It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there. If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response, I think it will be very bad for the future of Nato.”
European Union foreign ministers will discuss on Monday bolstering a small naval mission in the Middle East but are not expected to decide on extending its role to the strait.
Trump also told the FT he “may delay” a summit with China’s Xi Jinping as he ramped up the pressure on Beijing, an Iran ally, to help secure the strait. It was reported last week that China was in talks with Tehran to allow safe oil and gas passage.
Trump said he expected China to help unblock the strait before he flies to Beijing. “I think China should help, too, because China gets 90% of its oil from the straits,” he said, suggesting that waiting until the summit would be too late. “We’d like to know before that.”
On Sunday Trump said his administration had already contacted seven countries for support, but he declined to identify them. In an earlier social media post, he said he hoped China, France, Japan, South Korea, Britain and others would participate.
“I’m demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory because it is their territory,” Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One on the way from Florida to Washington on Sunday. “It’s the place from which they get their energy.”
The president’s appeals have so far failed to produce any commitments. Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, speaking in parliament, said Japan did not currently plan to dispatch naval vessels to escort ships in the Middle East and confirmed the US had yet to make a formal request for assistance.
Prolonged restrictions on tanker traffic in the strait of Hormuz could threaten Japan’s energy security. The world’s fifth biggest economy imports 90% of its oil from the Middle East, 70% of which is shipped via the waterway. Takaichi is expected to discuss the war when she meets Trump in Washington later this week
On Monday, Japan began dipping into its oil reserves to alleviate supply concerns – the first time it has taken that step since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Japan is initially releasing 15 days’ worth of reserves held by the private sector, followed by a month’s supply of state-owned oil, according to the Kyodo news agency.
Sending its self-defence forces abroad is politically sensitive in officially pacifist Japan. The defence minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, also pushed back on the pressures for Tokyo to dispatch ships. “What we can technically do and whether we should do it under the current circumstances is a different story,” he said.
Australia has also pushed back on the request for naval assistance. “We won’t be sending a ship to the strait of Hormuz,” the transport minister, Catherine King, told the national broadcaster. “We know how incredibly important that is but that’s not something we’ve been asked or we’re contributing to.”
The UK said it was considering dispatching aerial minesweepers to help clear the waterway of mines in an attempt to allow the flow of oil exports to resume. However, officials said sending ships could worsen the situation given the volatile nature of the war.
French foreign ministry officials emphasised that their current military posture was aimed at ensuring regional stability rather than escalating the conflict.
South Korea’s presidential office said it would “continue to communicate closely with the US regarding this matter and make a decision after careful review”.
The blockade on the strait has sent the price of energy soaring globally. Oil prices continued to rise on Monday, hitting more than $104 a barrel in early trading.
With the conflict now in its third week, Trump on Sunday did not put a timeframe on concluding the war but said oil prices “are going to come tumbling down as soon as it’s over, and it’s going to be over pretty quick”.
The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, told ABC that it would “certainly come to the end in the next few weeks – could be sooner than that”.
Trump has said Washington is in contact with Iran but expressed doubt that Tehran was prepared for serious negotiations to end the conflict. The US president previously that claimed Iran wanted to negotiate but this was disputed by the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi. “We have never asked for a ceasefire, and we have never asked even for negotiations,” Araqchi told CBS. “We are ready to defend ourselves for as long as it takes.”
Araghchi sought to project an image of strength and resilience despite waves of US and Israeli airstrikes that have killed a number of Iranian leaders, sunk much of the Islamic Republic’s navy and devastated its missile arsenal.
“It’s not a war of survival. We are stable and strong enough,” he said. “We don’t see any reason why we should talk with Americans, because we were talking with them when they decided to attack us, and that was for the second time.”
The impacts of the war continued to be felt in the Gulf, as Iran maintained its bombardment of the region.
Missiles and drone attacks hit the United Arab Emirates. A drone-related incident sparked a fuel tank fire near Dubai airport that disrupted travel, while a missile killed a civilian in Abu Dhabi.
In the eastern emirate of Fujairah, a drone attack on oil infrastructure sparked a large fire, authorities said, reporting no injuries.
Agencies contributed to this report
