M/East War: Bitten Off More Than He Can Shew; Initially Rejecting, Trump Now Demanding Helps To Step In
- By Metropolix ~
- March 17, 2026 --
- 0 Comment
— US President, Donald Trump
By Hezzy Thom
President Donald Trump has consistently asserted that the war with Iran is going well. But his decision to ask for help from allies and other countries to resolve the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is the latest evidence that calls that into question.
In fact, Trump repeatedly said he didn’t need help from other countries — including very recently — and he’s spent years alienating allies.
But the US president began ramping up his calls for help on Sunday.
“It’d be nice to have other countries police it with us,” Trump said aboard Air Force One, noting much of the oil that China imports comes through the strait.
Trump also insisted that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should get involved.
“We’re always there for NATO. We’re helping them with Ukraine,” Trump said, adding: “Doesn’t affect us, but we’ve helped them. It’d be interesting to see what country wouldn’t help us with a very small endeavor, which is just keeping the strait open.”
On Monday, at a meeting in the White House, Trump strongly criticized longtime allies that he said were not enthusiastic enough about helping.
“Some are countries that we’ve helped for many, many years. We’ve protected them from horrible outside sources, and they weren’t that enthusiastic,” Trump said. “And the level of enthusiasm matters to me.”
Trump claimed he has gotten “some positive response” after reaching out to countries, but he has often exaggerated and misstated such things. He declined to name any specific allies who have committed to sending aid and no countries have indicated publicly that they plan to intervene.
There are a couple of key points here.
One is that this is very difficult to square with Trump’s recent commentary about getting help from other countries, which has often been dismissive.
On March 3, after Spain declined to allow the United States to use its air bases, Trump insisted he didn’t need the country’s help.
“And so, I told him we don’t want — Spain has absolutely nothing that we need,” Trump said. “Other than great people. They have great people, but they don’t have great leadership.”
On March 7, as the United Kingdom considered dispatching an aircraft carrier to the region, Trump insisted such help was wholly unnecessary because victory had already been achieved.
“That’s OK, Prime Minister (Keir) Starmer, we don’t need them any longer,” Trump posted on social media. “But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!”
On March 9, Trump said it was “my honor to” work to secure the Strait of Hormuz, insisting the oil supply that crosses that strategic waterway was mostly helpful to other countries like China.
A UAE navy ship sails next to a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz as seen from Khor Fakkan, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, March 11, 2026.
A UAE navy ship sails next to a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz as seen from Khor Fakkan, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. Altaf Qadri/AP
On Friday, Trump responded to Ukraine’s offer to help counter Iranian drones by telling Fox News radio host Brian Kilmeade that “we don’t need the help in drone defense.” And Trump told NBC News something similar Saturday, insisting “we don’t need help.”
These are all the comments of a man who didn’t seem to foresee needing help. Especially given his “we don’t need people” comments about the UK — a position he’s certainly flipped on now. He said Monday he was “not happy” with Starmer for not immediately committing to help US forces in the strait.
“I said, ‘You don’t need to meet up with the team. You’re the prime minister. You can make your own — why do you have to meet with your team to find out whether or not you’re going to send some minesweepers to us or to send some boats?’” Trump told reporters.
Which brings us to the other key point: To the extent Trump thought he might need help from other countries, it sure would have seemed wise to start smoothing things over first.
Trump has spent much of his two terms alienating the kinds of allies that could seemingly come to the United States’ aid. And that’s arguably ramped up in his second term.
It was less than two months ago, after all, that Trump was still leaving open the possibility of a military invasion of a NATO ally in Greenland. Even given doubts that invasion would ever happen, Trump was clearly trying to coerce Denmark to hand over the territory.
He’s also talked about making Canada the 51st state in ways that country and many others regard as rather provocative, if not downright offensive.
He has targeted lots of allies with his tariffs, sometimes seeming to play rougher with them than he does with some adversaries.
He has regularly made incendiary remarks at international get-togethers and acted as if he were trying to bully US allies rather than get along with them. This led to some extraordinary comments from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and others recently, in which they suggested perhaps their best course forward was a decoupling from the United States.
And then there are some particularly pertinent — and rather ill-considered, in light of where we are — comments that Trump made in late January about NATO.
“We’ve never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them,” Trump said. “You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that. And they did — they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”
Even in a vacuum, those comments were highly offensive to allies — especially since many of them suffered significant deaths in Afghanistan. Coalition soldiers did fight on the front lines, and more than 1,000 of them died.
But those comments loom particularly large now. Trump repeatedly said he didn’t need longtime US allies and then turned around less than two months later and demanded help in a war he started. He insulted the sacrifices of allies and then asked them to sacrifice again.
At the very least, it would suggest Trump didn’t imagine himself in this position.
Despite Trump’s past comments, those countries might still feel pressured to help in some way, given how a bottleneck in the Strait of Hormuz could cause long-term harm to the global economy.
Still, Trump’s about-face on this seems to reinforce that the US president has bitten off more than he thought he might have to chew.
Source: CBN News
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