Washington: President Donald Trump called on US allies and global powers to shoulder responsibility for safeguarding the Strait of Hormuz, while dismissing ceasefire demands amid the escalating Iran conflict.
"We don’t use the Strait, the United States, we don’t need it…Europe needs it, Korea, Japan, China, a lot of other people, so they’ll have to get involved," Trump told reporters, positioning the critical oil chokepoint as a collective international duty.
Reopening the strait, he said, amounts to "a simple military maneuver" but demands significant coordination. "It’s relatively safe, but you need a lot of help…you need ships, you need volume." He criticized NATO for lacking "the courage" to step up so far.
Trump singled out Indo-Pacific partners like South Korea and Australia, expressing surprise at their hesitation: "They should get involved."
Refusing to halt US operations despite global de-escalation pleas, Trump insisted, "You don't do a ceasefire when you're literally obliterating the other side. We're not looking to do that."
Iran's forces, he claimed, are crippled: "They don’t have a navy, they don’t have an air force…they don’t have anti-aircraft…their leaders have all been killed at every level." The campaign, he added, is "weeks ahead of schedule."
Brushing off worries about spiking oil prices and market jitters, Trump prioritized security: "We’re not giving a nuclear weapon to terrorist thugs, and we’re knocking the hell out of them." Oil costs, he noted, haven't risen as sharply as expected.
(Inputs from IANS)