AILSA CHANG, HOST:
President Trump is lashing out at European and NATO leaders who are rejecting his demands to help escort oil ships through the Strait of Hormuz. He's warning that they're making a very foolish mistake and that the U.S. needs to rethink its own support for the European alliance. NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez has this story on the transatlantic tensions.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Hello, everybody.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Mr. President...
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: On the flight back to Washington, D.C., President Trump turned up the heat on his pressure campaign against allies to help police the Strait of Hormuz, where commercial traffic had slowed to a crawl. He singled out the United Kingdom and France as well as China, Japan and South Korea.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Really, I'm demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory because it is their territory. It's the place from which they get their energy.
ORDOÑEZ: Iran's ability to threaten slow-moving oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz has become a headache for the administration as it creates a stranglehold on the 20% of the world's oil supply that travels through the strait. But the next day, Trump teased that his secretary of state would be making a big announcement about the list of countries who are joining the coalition.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I have to tell you, we have some that are really enthusiastic. They're coming already. They've already started to get there. You know, it takes a little while to get there. It's like, in some cases, you have to travel an ocean.
ORDOÑEZ: Well, that wasn't necessarily the case, as leaders were soon making public announcements that they didn't want to get involved in sometimes sharp language. The German defense minister said, quote, "this is not our war." The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, said the U.K. won't be drawn into a wider conflict.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KAJA KALLAS: Nobody is ready to put their people in harm's way in the Strait of Hormuz. But like I said, we have to find, you know, diplomatic ways to keep this open so that we don't have a, you know, food crisis, fertilizers crisis, energy crisis in the world.
ORDOÑEZ: That's Kaja Kallas, the European Union foreign policy chief. In an interview with Reuters, she would not entirely close the door on European involvement. But she said leaders right now don't understand the U.S. moves or objectives.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KALLAS: The main concern of the European countries is that we were not consulted with, you know, starting this war. Actually, the opposite. There were many Europeans who were trying to convince U.S. and Israel not to start this war.
ORDOÑEZ: Trump was clearly frustrated by the response, and he called it a foolish mistake.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: So we helped them, and they didn't help us. And I think that's a very bad thing for NATO.
ORDOÑEZ: He pointed to financial and military support the U.S. has provided to the region, particularly to help Ukraine fight off the Russian invasion.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I've long said that, you know, I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us. So this is a - this was a great test 'cause we don't need them, but they should have been there.
ORDOÑEZ: While he didn't offer any potential repercussions, Trump did say the U.S. may need to rethink its relationship with Europe. Franco Ordoñez, NPR News, the White House. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
