Trump ‘strongly’ encourages other nations to help on ‘paper tiger’ Iran, Strait of Hormuz

President Trump encouraged other countries to assist in dealing with the closure of Iran’s Strait of Hormuz on Monday, calling Tehran “a paper tiger” in response to concerns of threats from the Middle Eastern nation.

“We strongly encourage the other nations to get involved with us, and get involved quickly and with great enthusiasm,” Trump told reporters in the White House East Room.

“I have that from a number of them, and I would like to say their names, but frankly I don’t know if they want me to or not because maybe they don’t want to be targeted,” he continued. “But I say it wouldn’t matter if you’re being targeted or not because this is a paper tiger we’re dealing with.”

“It wasn’t a paper tiger two weeks ago. It’s a paper tiger,” he added.

Iran has severely limited traffic in the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply flows. Over the last 24 hours, zero ships have gone through the passageway, down significantly from the typical daily average of 60 ships, according to hormuzstraitmonitor.com.

Trump has called for a coalition of countries, including the U.S., to assist in dealing with the situation in the vital waterway, but so far countries have had a tepid response to that ask in public.

The president said on Sunday that he’s asked “about seven” countries to join with the U.S. in policing the Strait of Hormuz, but many longtime U.S. allies, including Australia and Japan, have expressed skepticism to joining such a coalition.

Trump described some countries as being “very enthusiastic,” while others have been “less than enthusiastic,” while refusing to name which countries he was referring to.

“I think we have one or two that will not do it that we’ve been protecting for about 40 years at tens of billions of dollars,” he said, without going into further detail.

The president also revealed that he has spoken with his French President Emmanual Macron about receiving help in the Strait of Hormuz, rating Macron’s response as an eight on a scale of one to 10.

“But it’s France. We don’t expect perfect,” Trump said. “I think he’s going to help. I mean, I’ll let you know.”

Trump added that he thinks the U.K. will be involved, despite UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer being the most vocal in opposition of joining such a coalition. Trump added that he thought “they should be involved enthusiastically.”

The president went on to note China and Japan’s reliance on the oil from the strait, highlighting what he referred to as nonreciprocal relationships with the U.S. on the matter.

“China’s a great example. They get 90 percent of their oil from the Hormuz straits, which we protected for years,” Trump said, adding that Japan gets 95 percent of its oil from the waterway.

“It always bothered me that we’re protecting them, and we don’t need them,” he said, referring to U.S. reliance on its own oil supply, but that falls short without reliance from the global market.

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