US President Donald Trump on Monday accused allies of showing low “enthusiasm” for the coalition he proposed to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most vital route for oil tankers.

Shipping in the Persian Gulf waterway has come to a virtual halt after Tehran threatened to target vessels there in response to the bombing campaign that the US and Israel launched on Iran on February 28 in a bid to destabilize the regime and set back its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Trump on Saturday urged allied countries to help the US ensure safe passage through the strait, the closure of which has led to a sharp rise in oil prices. He has said Israel was helping the US secure the strait.

Speaking at an event at the White House on Monday, Trump said, “Numerous countries have told me they’re on the way.”

“Some are very enthusiastic about it… and some aren’t,” he said, without elaborating. “The level of enthusiasm matters to me.”

“We strongly encourage the other nations to get involved with us and get involved quickly, with great enthusiasm,” he said, adding that one or two countries would likely decline to join the initiative.

He claimed skeptics of the initiative included countries that the US has helped for many years, and that securing the Strait of Hormuz would be more beneficial to other countries than to the US because the latter does not use the strait to import oil.

“We don’t need anybody. We’re the strongest nation in the world,” he said. “I’m almost doing [this initiative]… because I want to find out how [countries will] react. I’ve been saying for years that if we ever did need them, they won’t be there.”

Asked if he had spoken with French President Emmanuel Macron about the initiative to reopen Hormuz, Trump said he had and that “I think he’s going to help.”

“On a scale of zero to 10, I’d say he’s been an eight,” Trump said. “Not perfect, but it’s France.”

Trump also said he thought the UK would join, even as he assailed the conduct of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has refused to send an aircraft carrier to the region.

“I was not happy with the UK. I think they’ll be involved, yeah, maybe. But they should be involved enthusiastically,” Trump said, adding that he had said to Starmer: “You’re our oldest ally, and we spend a lot of money on, you know, NATO and all of these things to protect you.”

Starmer said earlier that London was working with allies to craft a “viable” plan to reopen the strategic waterway, but ruled out a NATO mission.

In a meeting Monday, European Union foreign ministers showed “no appetite” to expand an EU naval mission in the Middle East to the Strait of Hormuz for the time being, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.

“There was in our discussions a clear wish to strengthen this operation, but for the time being, there was no appetite in changing the mandate of the operation,” Kallas told reporters after the meeting in Brussels.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told reporters in Brussels that his country favors strengthening anti-piracy and defensive missions in the Red Sea, but said he did not believe in expanding their roles to the Strait of Hormuz.

Japan and Australia both said Monday that they had not been asked to help protect the strait and had no current plans to do so.

Trump, in his comments, also insisted that Iran itself was a “paper tiger” after two weeks of joint US-Israeli airstrikes, adding that Washington was unclear whom it could negotiate with in Tehran.

“We don’t know… if he’s dead or not,” Trump said when asked about the condition of Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, whose father and predecessor Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening salvo of the US-Israeli bombing campaign.

“A lot of people are saying that he’s badly disfigured. They’re saying that he lost his leg — one leg — and he’s, you know, been hurt very badly. Other people are saying he’s dead. Nobody’s saying he’s 100 percent healthy,” he said.

“We don’t know who we’re dealing with” in Iran, Trump said. “We don’t know who their leader is.”

The younger Khamenei, who has not appeared in public since being named supreme leader last week, purportedly called to use “the lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz” in a statement read out by Iranian state media on Thursday.

Are you relying on The Times of Israel for accurate and timely coverage of the Iran war right now? If so, please join The Times of Israel Community. For as little as $6/month, you will:

Support our independent journalists who are working around the clock under difficult conditions to cover this conflict;

Read ToI with a clear, ads-free experience on our site, apps and emails; and

Gain access to exclusive content shared only with the ToI Community, including weekly letters from founding editor David Horovitz.

We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.

You clearly find our careful reporting of the Iran war valuable, at a time when facts are often distorted and news coverage often lacks context.

Your support is essential to continue our work. We want to continue delivering the professional journalism you value, even as the demands on our newsroom have grown dramatically during this ongoing conflict.

So today, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. For as little as $6 a month you'll become our partners while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.

Thank you,David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel

1 First personGamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don’t rewrite an Iran missile story

2 ‘Learn your lesson’: Inscribed 2,100-year-old sling bullet found in the Galilee

3 Seizing Iran’s uranium could take ‘largest special forces operation in history’ – WSJ

4 Trump said briefed on US intel showing Ali Khamenei thought his son ‘not very bright,’ unfit to lead

5 Lauding Israeli help, Trump intensifies pressure on China, others to help secure Hormuz Strait

6 ToI podcastBret Stephens: America and Israel are engaged in a common fight for civilization

7 6 wounded after Hezbollah rocket impact sparks fire in northern Israel

8 Iran FM claims Tehran never sought ceasefire or talks with US amid war

2026 US-Israel war with Iran

© The Times of Israel