MARCH 16, 2026 9:02 PM CET
BY
SEBASTIAN STARCEVIC AND
VICTOR JACKBRUSSELS — Europe's message to Donald Trump on Monday was clear: We're not helping you secure the Strait of Hormuz.
Foreign ministers from the 27 EU countries gathered in Brussels to discuss the American president’s call for European countries to help secure the narrow waterway, a vital oil shipping channel that Iran has largely blocked in retaliation for U.S. and Israeli airstrikes.
Among the ideas floated was expanding the mandate of the EU’s naval mission — Aspides — to allow European warships to be sent to patrol the strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
But after hours of closed-door talks about the war in Iran, Europe’s foreign envoys made clear they see this as America’s problem to solve.
“Europe has no interest in an open-ended war,” EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas said Monday evening after the meeting. “This is not Europe’s war, but Europe’s interests are directly at stake.”
Although there was a “clear wish” among ministers “to strengthen” the EU’s naval mission in the Middle East, “there was no appetite in changing the mandate,” Kallas said, referring to sending warships to the strait.
“Extending this mandate to cover the Strait of Hormuz ... there was no appetite from the member states to do that,” she repeated. “Nobody wants to go actively in this war.”
Respect, please
Trump
told the Financial Times at the weekend it would be
"very bad for the future of NATO" if European countries failed to respond to his call for help. He wrote on social media that he was
in contact with seven countries about securing the strait, without naming which countries he was referring to.
And on Monday, Trump
told reporters that he was confident France would assist the U.S. "I think he's gonna help. I mean, I'll let you know, I spoke to him yesterday," the American president said, referring to his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron. Trump also said he was “not happy” with the response from the U.K. and “very surprised” after Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would not be drawn into a "wider war" over Iran.