President Donald Trump has made a public appeal to five nations - China, France, Japan, South Korea, and Britain - to send naval forces to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, his first acknowledgment that the United States may lack the resources to reopen the vital waterway on its own.
The appeal, posted on social media on Saturday, came after traffic through the strait ground to a near halt despite two weeks of US military operations, "Hvylya" reports, citing The New York Times. Trump called on the five countries to "send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a Nation that has been totally decapitated."
The request puts Trump in an awkward position. He is asking for backup from allies who were largely not consulted before the US launched the war. Just a week ago, he told British Prime Minister Keir Starmer not to bother sending two aircraft carriers to the region because "we don't need them any longer," adding that "we don't need people that join Wars after we've already won." Trump also urged commercial tanker owners to "show some guts" and resume transit - a call that went unheeded.
The scale of the problem became clear during an Oval Office meeting last week, when a frustrated Trump pressed General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about why the US could not immediately reopen the strait. The answer was blunt: Iran's remaining asymmetric forces - speedboats, mobile launchers, and sea mines - make the narrow waterway virtually impossible to secure without a massive escort operation. With oil at $100 a barrel and insurance premiums for Persian Gulf transit surging, tanker owners are simply refusing the risk.
A New York Times analysis found that as of Thursday, at least 16 oil tankers, cargo ships, and other commercial vessels had been attacked in the Persian Gulf, including three in the narrowest part of the strait. The primary solution under discussion - US Navy escorts for commercial ships - is probably weeks away, administration officials conceded, as the United States would need to assemble additional ships and defensive equipment first.
Additional Marines are already en route to the region after being pulled from the Indo-Pacific. On Sunday, a senior US military official said there would be an international effort to restore the flow of oil and goods through the strait. Meanwhile, the United States has even suspended sanctions against some Russian oil sales to help alleviate price hikes.
Also read: Iran Borrowed Russia's Playbook to Drain Gulf States of Their Most Expensive Missiles.