\u201cThis will be strictly peaceful and defensive, as a mission to reassure commercial shipping and support mine clearance,\u201d the prime minister<\/a> said at a gathering of world leaders in Paris on Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe invite all nations with an interest in the free flow of global trade to join us. Some have already indicated their readiness to contribute. We will take this forward with a military planning conference in London next week where we will announce more detail on the composition of the mission, and over a dozen countries have already offered to contribute assets.\u201d<\/p>\n But the US president soon hit out at the announcement, writing on Truth Social: \u201cNow that the Hormuz Strait situation is over, I received a call from NATO asking if we would need some help. I TOLD THEM TO STAY AWAY, UNLESS THEY JUST WANT TO LOAD UP THEIR SHIPS WITH OIL. They were useless when needed, a Paper Tiger! President DJT\u201d<\/p>\n While the talks took place in the French capital, Iran has said it has reopened the strait to shipping, in a move welcomed by the US President.<\/p>\n He wrote in another post on Truth Social: \u201cIran has agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again. It will no longer be used as a weapon against the World! President DONALD J. TRUMP\u201d<\/p>\n Iran had effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz since the US-Israeli bombing campaign began at the end of February, forcing up energy and fuel prices around the world.<\/p>\n Tehran said it had reopened the strait to shipping as part of the ceasefire deal in the Middle East.<\/p>\n Strains on the alliance have been highlighted by the response to the US president\u2019s war on Iran, which has prompted an economic shock felt around the globe.<\/p>\n His latest in a string of critical remarks <\/a>about Nato come a week after he met with secretary general Mark Rutte, where the White House said Trump planned to have a \u201ca very frank and candid\u201d<\/a> conversation about his frustrations with the alliance.<\/p>\n The relationship between Downing Street and the White House has come under particular pressure, following a barrage of scathing remarks made by the US president in response to the UK\u2019s refusal to become involved in his offensive operations.<\/p>\n In a recent jibe, Mr Trump likened Sir Keir to Neville Chamberlain at a White House Easter event on Monday, telling reporters the UK had \u201ca long way to go\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7418,6764,516,2403,254,7610,1249,7491,83,6355,94,7607,6767,14,6769,7611,7608,7612,7609,4030,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-16172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-business-finance-and-industry","9":"tag-color-image","10":"tag-conflict","11":"tag-diplomacy","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-elysee-palace","14":"tag-emmanuel-macron","15":"tag-finance-and-economy","16":"tag-france","17":"tag-horizontal","18":"tag-keir-starmer","19":"tag-paris-france","20":"tag-photography","21":"tag-politics","22":"tag-politics-and-government","23":"tag-president-of-france","24":"tag-press-conference","25":"tag-prime-minister-of-the-united-kingdom","26":"tag-summit-meeting","27":"tag-transportation","28":"tag-uk","29":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116420648796783826","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2271798577.jpg\")
The criticism after Britain and France announced they would will lead a “multinational mission” aimed at protecting ships passing through the vital waterway, which is key to global oil supplies (Getty)<\/p>\n![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2271127367.jpg\")
In a fresh attack, the US president once again accused Nato of being \u201cuseless when needed\u201d and a dubbed it a \u201cpaper tiger\u201d (AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n