Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lashed out at American allies Friday for not committing naval forcesforcibly re-open the Strait of Hormuzafter Iran shut down the key waterway in retaliation against the U.S.-Israeli attacks.
During a Pentagon briefing with Joint Chiefs of Staff chair General Dan Caine, Hegseth implied thatEuropean and Asian countries were not sufficiently gratefulfor the U.S.-led war, which he called “a gift to the world” from PresidentDonald Trump, citing the administration's purported goal of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
“It's a bold and dangerous mission ... courtesy of a bold and historic president,” Hegseth said.
The defense secretary claimed the U.S. Navy's “ironclad blockade” on Iranian ports would be “going global” and “tightening by the hour” to prevent any ships from entering or leaving Iran's territorial waters absent U.S. permission.
At the same time, he accused Iranian forces of “acting like terrorists” by attempting to enforce their own blockade of the waterway against “random ships" and laying "indiscriminate mines" in the strait.
"Iran's battered military ... has been reduced to a gang of pirates with a flag. They cloak their aggression in slogans, but the world now sees them for what they are — criminals on the high seas," he said.
“We are in control. Nothing in, nothing out,” Hegseth added.
Although the ex-television presenter turned defense chief claimed the U.S. has blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, American ships have not been operating in that narrow passage because doing so would put them in range of Iranian drone or missile attacks.
Instead, American forces in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean have been intercepting ships bound for or originating from Iranian ports since earlier this month as a way of restricting Iranian revenue from both oil exports and Tehran’s efforts to extract massive tolls from ships seeking to pass through the strait.
Iranian forces have effectively blockaded the strait since the start of the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign, cutting off approximately 20 percent of the world’s oil supply from markets and sending petroleum prices to levels not seen in years.
Tehran has also placed mines in the strait and has seized or attacked ships transiting through it, leading to a massive buildup of idle ships and raising fears of shortages of fuel and other products in regions that rely heavily on imports and exports through the strait.
Hegseth denigrated longtime U.S. allies in Europe and Asia for not joining in the American-Israeli war and claiming that they have more reason to want shipping traffic through the strait to resume because the U.S. “barely” makes use of it in comparison.
“Europe and Asia have benefited from our protection for decades, but the time for free riding is over. America and the free world deserve allies who are capable, who are loyal and who understand that being an ally is not a one way street. It's a two way street,” Hegseth said.
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“We are not counting on Europe, but they need theStrait of Hormuzmuch more than we do, and might want to start doing less talking and having less fancy conferences in Europe and get in a boat.”
The defense secretary’s derisive comments towards U.S. allies come one week after the U.K. and France convened a 51-country summit on the situation in the Strait of Hormuz.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron announced that both countries would lead “an independent and strictly defensive multinational mission to protect merchant vessels, reassure commercial shipping operators, and conduct mine clearance operations.”
Starmer and Macron said in a statement that the multinational effort would commence “as soon as conditions permit” but only after implementation of a “sustainable ceasefire agreement.”
While a long-term deal appears far off, earlier this week Trump announced that he would continue to honor a temporary ceasefire deal that had been set to expire Wednesday after Pakistani leaders prevailed on him to do so rather than resume attacks on targets inside Iran. But the president told reporters he’s in no hurry to make a deal with Tehran, insisting that he has “all the time in the world” to do so.
During a question-and-answer session with a handpicked selection of right-wing reporters who’d been given front-row seats at the Pentagon press conference, Hegseth said the blockade would last “as long as it takes” while belittling Starmer and Macron’s efforts as “a lot of talks” and mocking the multinational summit as “a silly conference in Europe last week where they got together and talked about, talking about maybe doing something eventually, when things are done.”
He similarly slammed the proposed multinational force as “not serious efforts” because they would not involve offensive operations against Iranian forces while claiming the U.S. would “welcome a serious European effort to do something about this straight and this passage, considering it's their energy capabilities that are most at stake.”
Hegseth’s repeated belittling of America’s traditional allies is in line with the president’s repeated expressions of disdain for NATO after the 32-member defensive alliance did not join in the offensive war he started on February 28 alongside Israel without consulting or requesting help from other members of the alliance.
Trump has since then repeatedly mocked NATO as a “paper tiger” and claimed members “weren’t there for us” despite the fact that the alliance’s mutual defense provision has only been invoked to defend the U.S. in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
As Iran’s retaliatory blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has caused global oil prices to spike and Trump’s approval rating to sink ahead of the November midterm elections in the U.S., the president and his aides have been considering how to punish NATO members for not joining the U.S.-led war.
Trump has mused aloud about withdrawing the U.S. from NATO — a course of action that would be prohibited under a 2021 law authored by Secretary of State Marco Rubio during his time as a Florida senator — and a leaked Pentagon memorandum first reported on by Reuters suggests retaliating against the U.K. by purportedly “reviewing” British claims to the Falkland Islands.
The State Department’s website states that the islands are administered by the UK but are still claimed by Argentina, whose libertarian president, Javier Milei, is a Trump ally.
In response, a spokesperson for Starmer pointed out that Falklanders “have hugely voted overwhelmingly in favor of remaining a UK overseas territory.”
“The question of the Falkland Islands and the UK’s sovereignty and the islanders’ right to self-determination is not in question, and we’ve expressed that position clearly and consistently,” the spokesperson added.
