A European-led mission to clear the Strait of Hormuz and keep it open for global oil traffic is being spun as a snub to President Donald Trump, despite it being exactly what the American leader has been asking for allies to step up and do for weeks.
France’s Emmanuel Macron and Britain’s Keir Starmer will co-host a conference of potential contributing members of “coalition of the willing”-like mission to patrol the Strait of Hormuz, the critical chokepoint in the Persian Gulf, which in normal times sees a fifth of the world’s daily seaborne oil trade, on Friday. Reuters reports that the two leaders will meet in person at the conference, and representatives of up to 40 other countries will dial in by teleconference to discuss maritime security in the Middle East.
The plan, on first inspection, appears to be an answer to U.S. President Donald Trump’s now-longstanding call for Western allies and NATO members to step up to their responsibilities, put their shoulder to the wheel and help provide the global security that their own economies rely on. Yet the proposed mission is apparently being spun as a rebuff of Trump, an assertion of European power that shows the continent doesn’t need the American security umbrella.
The bid to sell the mission to the European public as an anti-Trump initiative fits a now very well-rehearsed pattern of behaviour that goes back to President Trump’s decade-long criticism of NATO as too reliant on U.S. taxpayers, and more recently to America’s outsize spending on propping up Ukraine. In both cases, President Trump was quite clear about wanting his European allies to take more responsibility for their own defence, and when those European nations finally acquiesced, they were portrayed as plucky initiatives to spite “unreliable” America.
According to the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed insiders said to be familiar with the new Hormuz plan, the proposed coalition could send minesweepers to the Persian Gulf, precisely as requested by President Trump. Yet to assert European independence, the mission would not be under the command of an American officer, and the United States has not been invited to take part.
Israel and Iran would also be excluded from taking part. China and India have been invited, yet, per reports, France believes Iran will have to be somewhat involved too, if only by tacitly giving its approval to European nations operating in the theatre, and that getting that Iranian buy-in necessitates locking America out.
Just like the Anglo-French “coalition of the willing” for Ukraine on which the Hormuz plan is said to be based, its leaders are said to be totally unwilling to put their militaries in harm’s way until all fighting is over. This has further frustrated President Trump, who this week observed of his calls for assistance in keeping Hormuz open: “When we asked them for help, they were not there. When we needed them, they were not there. When we didn’t need them, they were not there. And they still aren’t there”.
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