Donald Trump warns that NATO will have a “very bad future” if allies do not help the US in Iran

The US president told the Financial Times in an interview that the summit with China could be postponed.

The US president told the Financial Times in an interview on Sunday that he may also delay his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month as he presses Beijing to help unblock the crucial waterway.

“It's normal for the people who benefit from the goods that come through the strait to make sure that nothing bad happens there,” Trump said, arguing that Europe and China depend heavily on Gulf oil, unlike the US.

“If there is no response or if there is a negative response, I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO,” he added.

Trump's comments, made in an eight-minute phone call to the FT, came a day after he called on China, France, Japan, South Korea and Britain to join a “team effort” to open the bottleneck through which a fifth of the world's oil passes.

Iran virtually closed the strait after the US and Israel launched the war more than two weeks ago, sparking fears of a further oil price shock to the global economy. US efforts to open the waterway have largely failed. International oil prices hit $106 a barrel late Sunday, up about 45 percent since the war began.

Despite his warning, Trump was pessimistic that US allies would heed his calls for help.

“We have something called NATO,” said Trump, who has often criticized the alliance. “We were very kind. We didn't have to help them with Ukraine. Ukraine is thousands of kilometers away from us… But we helped them. Now we will see if they will help us. Because we have said for a long time that we will be there for them, but they will not be there for us.”

Asked to specify what help he needs, Trump replied “whatever.” He added that allies should send minesweepers, of which Europe has far more than the US.

He also wanted “people to remove some negative actors from the shore [iranian]Trump has suggested he wants European commando teams or other military help to take out the Iranians who are creating a “nuisance” in the Gulf with drones and naval mines.

“We're hitting them really hard,” Trump said. “They have no choice but to create trouble in the Straits, but these people are beneficiaries and should help us oversee the situation. We will help them. But they should be there too.”

Trump said he also expects China to help unblock the strait before he travels to Beijing later this month for a summit with Xi Jinping, his first trip to China in his second term.

“I think China should also help because China gets 90 percent of its oil from the strait,” Trump said. It would be too late to wait until the summit, he said.

“We'd like to know before that. There's still time.” He added that his trip to China may also be delayed. “We could delay,” Trump said, without saying how long.

The US president's comments came as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with his Chinese counterpart He Lifeng in Paris for talks on the planned summit in Beijing at the end of March.

Xi invited Trump to visit China when the two leaders met in South Korea in late October and reached a truce in the US-China trade and technology war. Beijing has given no sign of wanting to postpone the summit, despite the war in Iran, which is a major supplier of oil to China.

After speaking with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer earlier Sunday, Trump expressed particular frustration with Britain's response so far.

“The UK could be considered the number one ally, the longest-standing and so on, and when we asked them to come, they didn't want to come,” he said. “And as soon as we basically eliminated Iran's threat capability, they said, 'well, we're going to send two ships,' and I said, 'we need these ships before we win, not after we win.' I've said for a long time that NATO is a one-way street.”

He argued that any danger to allies moving assets to the Gulf would be minimal because the US and Israel have destroyed Iran's military capability in the past two weeks.

“We basically decimated Iran,” Trump said. “They have no navy, no anti-aircraft systems, no air force, it's all gone. The only thing they can do is make a little trouble by putting a mine in the water – a nuisance, but a nuisance can cause trouble.”

However, the European allies were already affected in the war. A French soldier was killed in an Iranian drone strike in Iraq on Thursday. An Italian aircraft was destroyed on Sunday at a base in Kuwait.

Trump also warned that the US was prepared to launch new attacks on Kharg Island, Iran's oil export hub, and could target its oil infrastructure.

“You saw how we hit Kharg Island yesterday,” he said, referring to a bombardment he announced on Friday. “We can hit the island in five minutes. And there's nothing I can do about it.”

Asked if Russia was helping Iran with satellite data to target American and Israeli missile defenses, Trump said: “I don't know. But you could also say we helped Ukraine to some extent. It's hard to say, 'You're targeting us, but we helped Ukraine.'”

Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, gave Ukraine $350 billion in cash and equipment, the president claimed. “We did the same thing.”