President Donald Trump speaks after signing an executive order regarding a task force on fraud in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, March 16, 2026, in Washington, with a model of a B-2 stealth bomber in front of him. (AP Photo)
President Donald Trump spent his first year back in power disparaging U.S. allies. Now he wants them to help America in the Iran war — and they are none too enthusiastic.
From tariffs to insults and threatening to invade Greenland, Trump has rarely missed an opportunity in recent months to criticize America's partners.
Yet now the 79-year-old Republican has said he expects the same allies to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic and reacted angrily when they rebuffed him.
Trump has warned that the NATO alliance could be at risk if it fails to step up to unblock the strategic waterway, saying other countries get most of their oil supply through it and must contribute.
But while he insisted Monday that "we don't need anybody" to clear the straits, he also thundered that U.S. allies from Europe to Asia owe Washington for giving them decades of protection.
Trump has also hit out at China for failing to help.
In foreign capitals there has been deep skepticism over getting involved in a war Trump did not consult them on, yet which has caused major disruption to their economies.
Their reluctance has been compounded by Trump's repeated tongue-lashings since returning to office.
Trump has slapped tariffs on allies, berated NATO members over their defense spending and support for Ukraine, and unveiled a national security strategy that prioritized boosting pro-Trump parties in Europe.
He has disparaged the contributions of nations whose soldiers fought and died alongside U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan — and claimed that America won World War II by itself.
And just weeks ago came Trump's threats to invade Greenland, which prompted an unprecedented display of unity behind fellow NATO member Denmark that forced Trump to back down.
Before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, then-president George W. Bush spent months building up what he called a "coalition of the willing" of more than 40 countries to back the United States.
But Trump, whose criticism of the Iraq war and other U.S. quagmires was a centerpiece of his "America First" policy, failed to construct any similar alliance for a war he believed would be over soon.
European nations already struggling to deal with Ukraine and their own economies have very practical concerns about getting involved now in Iran, said Liana Fix of the Council on Foreign Relations.
"It is not payback, but just very real constraints and policy trade-offs," Fix told AFP.
But while U.S. allies will still be wary of irking Trump over Hormuz, they may also choose to show that they can no longer be pushed around.
"If they do go along with him, his experience will be that bullying and blackmail work. That's been his experience for the whole first year, and then Greenland put a stop to it," said Philip H. Gordon, who was also a special assistant to president Barack Obama.
"Now the chickens are coming home to roost."
