Name: Trump claims countries will send warships to Strait of Hormuz
Uploaded: 2026-03-15T16:29:45.000Z
Duration: 13 min 58 s
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President Trump is calling on other countries to help secure safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

Adverbs of manner

Trump specifically called on China, France, the UK and others to help.

Shipping traffic has been at a virtual standstill in this strait caused gas prices to spike.

In a new interview with msNow, Iran's foreign minister disputed the claim that the strait is closed.

CNN correspondent Julia Benbrook has more.

This is a big area of focus right now as roughly 20% of the world's oil travels through the Strait of Hormuz and President Donald Trump has posted about this several times over the weekend.

I want to pull up part of one of those posts for you now.

In it he said this many countries, especially those who are affected by Iran's attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending warships in conjunction with the United States of America to keep the strait open and safe.

We have already destroyed 100% of Iran's military capability, but

it's easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close range missile somewhere along or in this waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are.

He added that he hopes, emphasis on hopes there, that China, France, South Korea and the United Kingdom will be sending ships.

In the meantime, he says that the United States will be bombing the shoreline now.

In a separate post, he reiterated his calls for other countries to help secure shipping in the passage, adding that he believes this should have been a team effort all along and now it will be.

He said the United States will be helping with coordination to ensure that this is done quickly, smoothly and well.

And this comes as Americans are feeling a direct impact here as there is a surge in gas prices.

And while Trump has said he is confident those will eventually go down, this could be an attempt to ease some of those growing concerns.

Iran's foreign minister has denied claims that the strait is completely closed, instead saying that they are blocking vessels with ties to the United States and Israel.

A week ago, President Trump told Keir Starmer that he didn't need help from the British, especially coming in the U.S.

Fast forward to this weekend where he's asking for help from China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK Others as well, to continue passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

Frame the reality that is confronting the president at this stage of the war.

Sure, I think his initial comments were related to the four objectives that were laid out in terms of what the Pentagon was trying to achieve from a military perspective, because there was a question about whether or not we would need to use the British base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to be able to launch strategic bombers against Iran.

And I think the Pentagon determined, obviously now that it could do so without having to use that base.

Now we're talking about a different mission set.

So in addition to those four objectives that were laid out in terms of taking out the missiles, the missile launchers, the drones, the defense industrial base behind that, the navy, and

then potentially the nuclear program, which Cedric just spoke to, in terms of what they're targeting, a new mission set has popped up, and

that is the defense of the Straits of Hormuz to allow folks to be able to transit their commercial shipping lives.

Because the Iranians have now adopted a strategy of trying to apply pressure on the US Administration to stop the war by jacking up the price of oil, basically by making the straits virtually impossible to strand, that they're physically open, but

due to the threat of a potential attack, ships are not transiting at the moment.

And so the US Is trying to build an international naval coalition similar to what they did off the coast of Yemen when the Houthis were attacking during the last round of conflict.

Colonel, I want you to listen here to the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Arachi.

I can say that the strait is not closed, but

it is only closed to American, Israeli, you know, ships and tankers and not to others.

Are countries, companies likely to test that assurance?

I mean, consider President Possesski and said that the Iranians were sorry for attacking their Gulf neighbors and, and

then continued hours later to attack them and still are.

You think anybody's going to test that offer?

And I think, you know, as Alex was alluding to the.

The basic thing is this, because the Iranians can't be trusted, shipping companies are not going to trust them.

And that's the real dilemma for them here.

They've got a whole bunch of ships on either side of the Strait of Hormuz, and

those ships aren't moving, except for a very few, except because the Iranians are posing a threat.

They probably so far at least, have not really mined the Strait of Hormuz.

Maybe in a symbolic sense, they've done, you know, they've deployed a few mines, but

And that, you know, definitely leads to the conclusion that, yes, it's physically possible to possibly transit, transit the strait, but

it's very dangerous and there's a risk there that they're not willing to take.

Alex, what's your thought on what the president told NBC that he's not ready to make a deal to end the war.

The president says that Iran wants to make a deal, but

he doesn't want to quote because the terms aren't good enough yet.

But implied here is that there are terms offered, that there are talks, that there are some offers from the Iranians.

Doesn't seem like there's been anything since the talks before the opening of this war.

What do you hear there from the president?

Well, I'm hearing from the president what I'm hearing from mediators in the region as well, where there's been several nation states that have attempted to mediate or pass messages in between.

And so that part, as you just alluded to.

Yes, I mean, that's pretty common at this point in the war.

And this actually all aligns with strategies on both sides, to be honest with you.

So, you know, it looks like there's several weeks of strikes left to complete the military mission on the US Side.

And it becomes a question of will the is the will there to see the mission through and ensure that there's not a capability left inside of Iran that could strike back.

And I think the president has made clear that the objectives that he's laid out are to make sure that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon or the ability to get one at the end of this, you know, to break out, so to speak, missiles and drones and that type of thing, which is a pretty robust mission.

It's a very, very big industrial base that has to be targeted in order to sort of take that out.

And for the Iranians, they're acting from a position of existential threat.

They believe that the regime is at threat.

And so they're doing everything they can to try to ensure this doesn't end.

And in an unconditional surrender, they want a conditional cease fire on their terms.

So I think at this point, you almost have to see the Straits mission through and open that up and not allow the Iranians to choke it off, or that's going to become a strategic choke point and means of deterrence in the future.

And that'll hold the global economy basically at risk whenever the Iranians want to.

And that's something that simply can't stand.

How do you see this playing out from where we sit today?

The president doesn't yet know how to get the Straits reopened.

As of right now, almost all of the naval assets that the United States has in the Persian Gulf are being used to defend Gulf infrastructure, energy desalination and bases.

And as a consequence, you can't defend the ships that are going through the straits or that are sitting there in the straits, which are right now basically sitting ducks if the Iranians choose to hit them.

That's why President Trump is suddenly calling pretty urgently for every country around, including China.

He's asking for other countries to send ships.

And this, remember the United States when they launched this war, went with the Israelis.

They weren't asking anyone else to be a part of it.

They weren't getting anyone else a heads up.

They were telling the Brits, we already won.

One week later, he's saying, we need a global flotilla.

And that is because the impact of these straits staying disrupted.

But the only country that can get ships out right now, the Iranians.

That is a major, major disruption that we're gonna feel for months in the United States and the global economy.

What is the likelihood of this actually happening?

What the President is requesting these other countries coming together to help.

And are you surprised by Iran's actions that they were willing to do it and shut down the strait?

I think that other countries are going to participate.

I think other countries will as well, maybe even India.

It's not like they're joining the United States in a coalition of the willing to beat up on Iran.