‘We no longer need NATO’: Trump sends shockwaves through Europe with ferocious attack on allies
Donald Trump has turned on America’s allies in a furious broadside after they rejected his plea for help in the Strait of Hormuz.
‘We no longer ‘need,’ or desire, the NATO countries’ assistance – we never did,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday.
Trump said he had been told America’s allies ‘don’t want to get involved’ in the Iran war, despite his appeals for help securing the strait as oil prices spiral.
The President slammed NATO as a ‘one way street’ and said ‘we will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need.’
Trump has been left exposed after the United Kingdom, France, Japan and Australia all declined to help protect commercial shipping in the Strait.
Gas prices have surged to an average of $3.80 a gallon from $2.90 before the conflict began three weeks ago, while the Strait – through which a fifth of the world’s oil flows – remains blockaded by Iranian mines and missiles.
Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies and a leading proponent of the military campaign, wrote on X after speaking with the President that he had ‘never heard him so angry,’ over Europe’s unwillingness to help protect the Strait.
Britain came in for particular punishment. Trump said he had personally asked Prime Minister Keir Starmer for minesweepers only to be told that consultations were needed first.
He re-upped his savage comparison to Britain’s heroic wartime leader Winston Churchill, gesturing to his bust in the Oval Office during a meeting with Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin on St Patrick’s Day.
‘Unfortunately, Keir is not Winston Churchill,’ Trump said.
President Donald Trump gives remarks to the media as he signs an executive order in the Oval Office on Monday
An oil tanker burns after being hit by an Iranian strike in the ship-to-ship transfer zone at Khor al-Zubair port near Basra, Iraq
Starmer said yesterday: ‘While taking the necessary action to defend ourselves and our allies, we will not be drawn into the wider war.’
Israel claimed it had killed two high-ranking Iranian commanders overnight. Thirteen US troops have been killed in the conflict, with more than 200 injured across seven countries.
Trump may now be forced to put boots on the ground in Iran to salvage victory, sources close to White House have warned, as Iran shows no signs of letting up.
‘We clearly just kicked [Iran’s] a** in the field, but, to a large extent, they hold the cards now,’ a source close to the White House told Politico. ‘They decide how long we’re involved, and they decide if we put boots on the ground. And it doesn’t seem to me that there’s a way around that, if we want to save face.’
Trump confidantes fear he risks being dragged into an open-ended conflict just as the midterm elections approach, with the escalating war threatening to drive up the cost of living for voters already furious about affordability.
‘The terms have changed,’ said a second person familiar with the military operation. ‘The off-ramps don’t work anymore because Iran is driving the asymmetric action.’
The war has also caused a schism between top allies within Trump’s MAGA movement, including Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, as the President has argued for years against regime-change wars in the Middle East.
US intelligence has also determined that Iran’s regime will likely remain in power despite relentless airstrikes.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will likely tighten its domestic grip as the country’s internal enforcer, intelligence officials told the Washington Post.
Israeli defense minister Israel Katz said security chief Ali Larijani and Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Basij forces, have joined the late Ayatollah Khamenei in the ‘depths of hell’ after targeted overnight airstrikes.
The attack on Larijani comes four days after he marched alongside thousands of Iranians at a Quds Day rally in Tehran where he taunted Trump during a live interview.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, unseen since the war began, has said the US and Israel must be ‘brought to their knees’ and accept defeat before any peace deal is possible.
‘For the White House, now the only easy day was yesterday,’ the source familiar with the military operation added. ‘They need to worry about an unraveling.’
The White House and Pentagon continue to insist the war is a ‘tremendous success,’ pointing to US naval and aerial superiority over Iran.
Despite the success touted by the administration, the US Navy remains unable to guarantee safe passage for commercial oil tankers through the Strait.
The human toll comes amid mounting concerns over the financial cost, the Pentagon having burned through $5.6billion worth of munitions in the first two days of the war
Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, walks along a street in Tehran on May 31, 2019
Israel claims to have assassinated top Iranian official Ali Larijani in an airstrike overnight
The US military has moved additional forces to the region, including the USS Tripoli and its 2,000-strong Marine Expeditionary Unit capable of seizing Iranian ports.
The deployment has led some to believe Trump will soon launch a limited ground offensive against the Islamic Regime to alleviate the global oil crisis.
Trump has suggested that the fighting could end soon, while also warning the US is prepared for a long-term offensive.