WASHINGTON (TNND) — The U.S. military’s blockade started this week without the aid of key NATO allies, exposing a widening rift between Washington and Europe, as President Donald Trump moved forward with his pressure campaign to force Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz.
The blockade, using naval forces to restrict travel from or to Iranian ports, has prompted concerns from European leaders who see it as escalatory and beyond the scope of the alliance.
The decision of America’s NATO allies to continue to sit out of active involvement in the war has roiled an already strained relationship for the alliance and put its European members in a challenging economic position with oil prices spiking and the blockade threatening further damage to the global economy.
Trump has claimed that other countries have offered to help with the naval blockade but has not specified which ones. None have publicly offered and several NATO allies have outright rejected it.
“The fundamental dynamics since Feb. 28 have not changed, which is this is not a conflict of their choosing,” said Garret Martin, Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer and the co-director of the Transatlantic Policy Center at American University. “There is no sense amongst European leaders that any placating Trump on this specific dossier is going to help them in any other areas. I don’t think they believe that helping him there will make him more amenable to helping over Ukraine.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the UK would not support it and hoped the two sides could find an off-ramp to the war to reopen the strait. Spanish defense minister Margarita Robles said the blockade “makes no sense.”
“Since this war started, nothing makes sense,” she said in an appearance on Spain public television.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday the country “stands ready to play its full part, as it has consistently sought to do” and has been leading talks with other countries to configure diplomatic and military options for keeping the strait open once the war is over.
“This strictly defensive mission, distinct from the belligerents, will be deployed as soon as the situation allows,” Macron said.
Even European governments aligned with Trump have been concerned about the risk of escalation from the blockade. Finnish President Alexander Stubb said during an event at the Brookings Institution on Monday Iran “holds a lot of the cards right now. I am afraid that is the reality.”
The deliberations on how to handle the conflict with Iran are the latest flashpoint for NATO and Europe to navigate since Trump returned to office. Trump has criticized the alliance as a “paper tiger” and suggested the U.S. would evaluate whether to stay in it after its members declined to help in Iran. He has also accused the alliance of taking advantage of the American military’s presence and underinvested in its own security.
U.S. allies have been skeptical of getting involved with the conflict in Iran and many have said they would not join any missions to secure the strait until fighting comes to an end and Tehran agrees to commitments that their ships will not be attacked. Several countries have said they would consider participating in a multinational mission only after a lasting ceasefire is in place.
Iran has been indiscriminate in its retaliations during the war, threatening to target any nation that helps the U.S. or Israel. That danger has already become reality after Iran launched a drone toward a United Kingdom base in Cyprus and targeted a joint U.S.-UK base in the Indian Ocean. The incidents have reinforced the concerns that direct involvement could draw them into the conflict.
“They are willing, both for strategic reasons but also because the economic stakes, to be part of a multinational operation in the strait once there is more stability and the fighting has clearly ended,” Martin said. “But before that, I don’t think that as a politically winning approach, and also it doesn’t necessarily solve the profound differences between the United States and Iran.”
The blockade comes after a weekend of long-running negotiations between the U.S. and Iran in Pakistan that ended without an agreement to end the war or extend the fragile ceasefire. Pakistan is pushing to organize another round of discussions this week to get ahead of the April 22 deadline, but a wide gulf remains between the two sides.
The U.S. has said Iran was not yet willing to meet its last, best offer despite some progress during discussions. Tehran claimed talks failed because Washington failed to gain its trust. The White House has pushed for Iran to give up its nuclear program, hand over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and opening the Strait of Hormuz.
In the absence of aid from Europe and NATO, some other governments have offered assistance to the U.S.-Israeli operation. Somaliland, a de facto independent state that broke from Somalia in 1991, has reportedly offered the United States military basing that could help bolster America’s foothold in the Red Sea.
Trump was unenthusiastic about the proposal when asked during a phone interview by the New York Post. When asked about the offer of a port, Trump said, “Big deal.”
“We’ll study it. I study a lot of things and always make great decisions and they turn out to be correct,” he said.
Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the chief of U.S. Africa Command, visited Somaliland last month to bolster security ties but the Trump administration has not moved to recognize it as a sovereign state.