Trump Faces Great Resistance Building a Coalition

“It’s early days, but Trump’s efforts to cajole, bully and threaten allied nations into sending warships to help his mission in the Gulf are already mired in difficulty,” Politico reports.

“Having made zero effort to build a military coalition ahead of his attack on Iran — as even President George W. Bush did before unloading on Iraq in 2003 — Trump now finds himself without an obvious set of allies to fall back on. And this, remember, is the same president who only a few weeks ago was threatening a NATO ally — Denmark — with the invasion of part of its sovereign territory. Which is maybe not the best way to win trust.”

“Trump spent much of the weekend urging key U.S. allies and competitors to join the struggle to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as oil and commodity prices continue to spiral. The president sought to up the ante significantly last night with a few barely veiled threats aimed squarely at the NATO alliance.”

Stephen Collinson: If Trump has already won the Iran war, why does he need foreign ships to help him end it?