Donald Trump has said the US does not need Nato after being rebuffed by a number of the organisation\u2019s member countries over his appeal for a multinational naval force to reopen the key strait of Hormuz trade route closed by Iran.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters from the Oval Office, the US president described the rejection of his calls as a \u201cvery foolish mistake\u201d, adding without evidence: \u201cEveryone agrees with us, but they don\u2019t want to help. And we, you know, we as the United States have to remember that because we think it\u2019s pretty shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump added that he thought Europe would have sent minesweepers to assist with the operation in the strait, adding that it was \u201cnot a big deal\u201d but was \u201cunfair\u201d to the US.<\/p>\n
Once again among Trump\u2019s targets was the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, who Trump said he was disappointed with, adding that the relationship with the UK had been good before Starmer took office.<\/p>\n
Donald Trump points to a bust of Winston Churchill as he speaks to reporters during a meeting with the Irish prime minister in the Oval Office on Tuesday. Photograph: Alex Brandon\/AP<\/p>\n
The US president\u2019s remarks came after Starmer said on Monday that while the UK would be \u201ctaking the necessary action to defend ourselves and our allies, we will not be drawn into the wider war\u201d. British government sources said there was no plan for UK ships to be deployed in the strait.<\/p>\n
A number of US allies have questioned Trump\u2019s changing logic for, and the necessity of, the US-Israeli war against Iran, now in its third week.<\/p>\n
In an earlier post on his Truth Social network, Trump also called out Japan, Australia and South Korea for saying they would not be sending warships. \u201cBecause of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer \u2018need,\u2019 or desire, the Nato<\/a> Countries\u2019 assistance _ WE NEVER DID!\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cLikewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n His remarks came in the midst of an escalating crisis in the Middle East, in which Iran has attacked cargo vessels transiting the strait of Hormuz, bringing oil shipments from large parts of the Gulf to a halt and triggering sharp rises in the global price of oil.<\/p>\n Oil prices graph<\/a><\/p>\n On a typical day, ships carrying about a fifth of the world\u2019s oil travel through the narrow passageway but Iran has said it will not allow \u201ceven a single litre\u201d to be shipped to its enemies. That has sent oil prices above $100 (\u00a375) per barrel and threatened a surge in inflation for the global economy.<\/p>\n In response to reports that he was considering potential ground operations by American or Israeli forces \u2013 either in the shape of taking over the Kharg Island oil port complex or in the area of Isfahan where Iran has stored stores much of its of highly enriched uranium \u2013 Trump said: \u201cI\u2019m really not afraid of that. I\u2019m really not afraid of anything,\u201d when asked if such a move could risk a Vietnam-style quagmire.<\/p>\n Reuters reported that the White House was encouraging the Ahmed al-Sharaa regime in Syria to help disarm Hezbollah in eastern Lebanon, a proposal that could pit Sunni former Salafists from the al-Nusra Front, which was implicated in sectarian massacres, against Shia Hezbollah forces.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s messaging on Tuesday remained contradictory as it has through much of the war, with the US president refusing to be drawn on a timeline even as he bragged about his military successes. \u201cLook, if we left right now it would take 10 years for them to rebuild,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not ready to leave yet, but we\u2019ll be leaving in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n Separately the Washington Post<\/a> reported that senior Israeli officials told US diplomats that Iranian protesters would \u201cget slaughtered\u201d if they took to the streets against their government, even as Israel continued to publicly call for a popular uprising.<\/p>\n Iran launched fresh attacks across the Gulf on Tuesday, widening a conflict that has already begun to spill beyond its initial fronts.<\/p>\n Qatar said it had intercepted a missile, with falling debris causing a fire but no casualties. In the United Arab Emirates, authorities briefly shut down airspace as the military responded to what it described as missile and drone threats before declaring the situation stabilised.<\/p>\n In Iraq<\/a>, drone and rocket attacks reportedly struck near the US embassy in Baghdad, while a separate strike killed four people at a house said to be hosting Iranian advisers. The incidents underscored how quickly Iraq was being drawn deeper into the regional confrontation.<\/p>\n Members of a Red Crescent rescue team hold a doll at the site of a building damaged by a strike in Tehran on Tuesday. Photograph: Majid Asgaripour\/Reuters<\/p>\n Explosions were also reported across Iran, including in Tehran, Ahvaz, Isfahan and Shiraz. Meanwhile, Iraq\u2019s oil minister said Baghdad had reached an understanding with Tehran to allow tankers to cross the strait of Hormuz.Trump also hailed the reported death of Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran\u2019s supreme national security council, in an Israeli strike<\/a>, without actually naming him but referring to his supposed role in spearheading the recent crushing of mass protests.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir leaders are gone,\u201d Trump said of Iran\u2019s clerical regime. \u201cA lot of people say their actual top was killed yesterday, along with somebody else who was responsible for the killing 32,000 \u2013 he was in charge of the killing of protesters.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an evil group. I mean, they\u2019ve killed much more than 32,000 people. And the man who was responsible for that was also killed yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has said the US does not need Nato after being rebuffed by a number of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-547047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}