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Trump’s Lonely War
00:31:59
As the war in Iran drags on, President Trump keeps signaling that it is about to end. But the fighting shows no signs of letting up. All the while, America’s closest allies in Europe continue to refuse Mr. Trump’s demands for help. Mark Landler, who covers trans-Atlantic relations for The New York Times, explains why European countries want no part in this war.
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- [00:00]
A
This podcast is supported by BetterHelp. Financial stress affects the majority of Americans. It is one of the leading sources of conflict for couples, often causing anxiety, sleep disruption, and even depression. Finding the right type of support can help. Therapy can provide the tools you need to navigate the emotional weight of financial stress and manage uncertainty with more confidence. See if therapy is for you. Visit betterhelp.com New York Times for 10% off, that's betterhelp.com New York Times from the New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitroweff. This is the Daily. As the war in Iran enters its sixth week, even as President Trump keeps signaling that it's about to end, the fighting shows no signs of letting up. Iran continues to fire missiles at its Gulf neighbors. The Strait of Hormuz is still blocked. And just this weekend, after Iran shot down a US Fighter jet, the US Military had to conduct a massive operation to rescue a downed airman. All the while, America's closest allies in Europe continue to refuse Trump's demands for help. Today, my colleague Mark Landler explains why European countries want no part in this war and how they're getting dragged in anyway. It's Monday, April 6th. Mark, for the first time in recent history, the US has gone to war without any of our European allies joining us. And it seems clear that President Trump is very mad at them because of this, to the point where Trump is now strongly suggesting again that he's going to leave NATO, that the US Is going to pull out of NATO. Obviously, we've seen these threats before and we've seen the transatlantic relationship stressed for quite some time now. So put this moment into context for me. On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is the tension between the US and our allies right now?
- [02:22]
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Well, Natalie, I'd be tempted to say 8 or 9 on a scale of 10, because the bitterness does seem to be running very deep. We're in fairly uncharted territory with a president waging war with no support and indeed, growing opposition to it among virtually all his European allies.
- [02:43]
A
Okay, I assume this really starts with the US not telling our allies that we were about to go to war with Iran in the first place.
- [02:53]
B
It does. But remember, to start, you really have to go even further back. You have to look at all the accumulated scar tissue of the first year of the Trump administration. President Trump came in threatening to take over Greenland. Then he imposed tariffs on Europe. So even before Iran, you had a sense on the European side that the United States was no longer an ally and indeed, in some ways was beginning to Behave like a predator. And so all of that, that baggage was hanging over the relationship. When the president goes to war against Iran with Israel and does not even consult Europe, does not even tell them the attack is coming, the United States and Israel have launched airstrikes across Iran. President Trump says the objective is to defend the American people. So on the morning of February 28, Europe wakes up to the news that the US and Israel are carrying out military strikes on Iran. Today's attack could forever change the Middle
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east and risks a forever war of the kind Donald Trump had vowed to end.
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And they are on the sidelines of a conflict that has direct security implications for them.
- [04:08]
A
Right. And how do they respond?
- [04:14]
B
France was neither informed nor involved, just like all the other countries in the region. And our allies? Well, they respond very cautiously. We call for maximum restraint in the use of force, respect for the lives of civilians, and the search for a diplomatic way out of this. First of all, by not criticizing the President in any direct way, the United Kingdom played no role in these strikes. But we have long been clear the regime in Iran is utterly abhorrent, even as they acknowledge that this was not an operation they were involved in. But regardless of that, President Trump soon begins asking the Europeans for help. In some ways, it's easy stuff, giving them overflight rights to use European airspace. Some are more complicated. The United States did make a request to use British bases to launch strikes that they call defensive strikes, letting the United States use military bases on European soil.
- [05:18]
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And what do our European allies do when Trump starts making those requests?
- [05:23]
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Some countries flat out refuse.
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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has denied U.S. requests to use his country's bases as part of the operation.
- [05:32]
B
Some countries are more willing to negotiate. We will not join offensive action now. But Iran is pursuing a scorched earth strategy. So we are supporting the collective self defence of our allies and our people in the region because Europe is not involved in this. They're willing to offer help for defensive and logistical operations, but not for offensive military operations. And that quickly becomes a complicated balance for them to walk.
- [06:11]
A
And so how does Trump see that, that commitment to only do defensive actions, but not to join up in anything offensive?
- [06:21]
B
Trump has a very black and white view of this. If you're not helping him on the offensive side, you're not helping him full stop. And so Trump's view is that Europe is not stepping up, is not backing a NATO ally, and he's pretty quick to level that criticism at them. We're going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don't want anything to do with Spain. President Trump threatens to cut off trade relations with Spain. By the way, I'm not happy with the UK either. Trump says that Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain is, quote, not Winston Churchill, that we're dealing with no Winston Churchill. But European countries in relatively modest but symbolically important ways stand up to Trump. And that, of course, just deepens the tension even further.
- [07:09]
A
My sense, Mark, is that despite that red line that Europe draws, they have started to get pulled in more and more into this conflict. Can you just describe the extent of what they've actually done up until this point?
- [07:25]
B
Well, you're right. Europe does get drawn in, almost inevitably for a couple of reasons. One is that some European countries, Britain and France notably, have military bases in the region or near the region. And some of those bases are inevitably targeted by Iranian drones or Iranian missiles. So Europe is drawn in in terms of def. Its own bases. It's also drawn in because European countries have security agreements with countries in the region, with Kuwait, with the uae. And so European planes are in the air over places like the uae, Qatar, Kuwait, helping defend those countries from Iranian attacks. And then, of course, Iran shuts down the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most strategic waterways and the place through which about a fifth of Europe's oil and gas flows and puts Europe's leaders in an incredibly difficult position. Because then Trump asked the Europeans to step up and forcibly reopen it, and the Europeans refuse. After that, things start getting even more turbulent. In a speech, Trump lashes out specifically at NATO. You're a paper tiger. But. So we didn't need him, but I asked anyway. He says he doesn't even need their help. We have is we really don't need any more oil. It'd be nice to take it, but we don't need it. And we sell you to Europe and all these countries that do you know, China gets and that the US doesn't need any more oil. So the Strait of Hormuz is no longer his problem. So let them do it. Let France do it. They get a lot of oil from the strait. Let the European countries do it. He's telling the allies to go get your own oil. And things really reach a kind of crescendo. Nicole, France Macron with this tit for tat between Trump and President Macron of France, whose wife treats him extremely badly, and. He's still recovering from the right to the jaw. You saw President Trump making fun of an incident involving Macron and his wife.
- [09:44]
A
Oh, wow.
- [09:44]
B
He even imitates Macron's accent when describing their conversation about the French supporting the efforts in Iran. No, no, no. Cannot do that, Donald. We can do that after the war is won. Macron strikes back. The remarks I heard that you're referring to are neither elegant nor appropriate, so I'm not going to respond to them. They don't deserve a response by questioning both the worthiness of using that kind of language during wartime, but also questioning Trump as a wartime leader. So we have to be serious. We want to be serious. We don't say the opposite of what we said the day before every day. And maybe we shouldn't talk every day.
- [10:31]
A
Okay, so everyone is increasingly frustrated with each other at this point. What exactly has Trump's argument been for the reason that our European allies should be involved in this?
- [10:46]
B
Well, you can boil it down to sort of two. One is the threat of Iran getting a nuclear weapon is every bit as imminent a threat to Europe as it is to Israel or the United States. But beyond that, Europe, he says, lies within range of Iran's ballistic missiles. Now, that's a somewhat debatable proposition, but it is true that Europe is thousands of miles closer to Iran than the United States. So theoretically, European capital, Berlin, Paris, London could eventually, if not already, be within range of Iranian missiles. So what the president is saying to European leaders is, don't kid yourselves. The nuclear threat is as big a danger for you as it is for us, and the missile threat is a bigger deal for you than it is for us.
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A
Got it.
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B
And even beyond that, Donald Trump's making an even more simple argument. Friends help friends. These countries are all members of NATO. One of the core principles of the NATO alliance is enshrined in Article 5, which says that if any member of the alliance comes under attack, the other members of the alliance will step up to defend it. This is, in principle, what Donald Trump is invoking here. Of course, what European leaders are saying to him is the US Wasn't attacked in this case. This is not a case that invokes Article 5.
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A
So is that the main reason why they're not joining the US In Iran, because the US Wasn't attacked, but launched the attacks first?
- [12:20]
B
I think the Europeans have a number of issues, but one of the most basic is that there's a deep skepticism that military strikes are going to solve the problems that the President says they're going to solve. Specifically, on the nuclear issue, the President has not made a compelling and convincing argument that a full scale military campaign is going to accomplish the goal of eradicating the nuclear program. They point out that the highly enriched uranium that lies under these already destroyed Iranian facilities is going to be very hard to get at that. Iran's already been crippled in its nuclear program by previous strikes led by the United States and Israel. And so the idea of starting a full blown war just doesn't seem persuasive to them.
- [13:13]
A
It sounds like they're essentially not agreeing with the strategy behind the war or the justification for it. Is another reason for their reluctance. Just that they're looking at the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and assessing that there actually may be very little that they can do to help reopen it.
- [13:31]
B
Yeah, that's a very important point. Germany had sort of asked, what is it that we can do that the United States can't do?
- [13:38]
A
Right.
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And other European leaders have repeatedly said it's difficult to see a solution in the Strait of Hormuz during the conflict that does not simply put our ships and our service people at risk and doesn't necessarily solve the problem.
- [13:54]
A
And is that true, Mark? Like, what could they do actually?
- [13:58]
B
Well, Europe has a couple of competencies. One is in the area of clearing mines. They do have mine sweeping ships. There is a very healthy debate about whether Iran has actually laid mines in the Strait of Hormuz. But if there was evidence they had, the Europeans could send minesweepers. The Europeans could also send frigates to escort oil tankers through the Strait. That is something that European navies have the problem with. That is if you're doing it during the conflict, those frigates would be targets for Iranian drones and short range missiles and all kinds of incoming fire. And so I think European leaders are dead set against doing that while the conflict is raging. They might be open to doing it after the conflict as a way of bolstering the confidence of the shipping companies. Just this past week, France actually got a ship through the Strait. We don't know exactly how it happened, but it suggests that there are possible other methods, like cutting deals with Iran, which of course would further antagonize President Trump.
- [15:09]
A
So basically, the Europeans could do something, but the options they have are limited and sort of fraught. And it generally seems as though they are pretty uneasy about jumping in to solve a problem they don't actually think can be solved and then possibly being dragged into a conflict with no clear end.
- [15:27]
B
Yeah, that's right. I mean, for them, they see all kinds of downside risk for very little, if any, upside benefit. And remember, there's a lot of history hanging over this specifically, there are two wars hanging over it. The first was in Afghanistan, a war that began after the 911 attacks on the US when NATO did did rally to the defense of the United States. European troops fought alongside the Americans in Afghanistan, which of course turned out to be a grinding two decade long conflict that ended with the Taliban recapturing the country was in some ways an encyclopedia of everything that is hard about nation building. In Iraq, which was very different, that was a war of choice rather than a war of necessity. And it was not supported universally. Remember, Britain supported it, but Germany and France both steer clear of it, believing that the President at the time, George W. Bush, had not made a compelling case that a full scale military invasion was the only and best option in this case. And Iraq has really been a source of trauma in Europe for many years. A lengthy, difficult conflict with all kinds of collateral effects that ended very unsatisfactorily in Britain, which supported the war. It was so unpopular that it really poisoned the legacy of Prime Minister Tony Blair and caused years of recrimination. So as these political leaders look at Iran, they are looking at it very much through the lens of Iraq and all the bad memories they have of that war.
- [17:11]
A
Okay, so given that history, it makes sense why the Europeans don't want to be in this war and why they would resist as much as possible any effort to pull them in even as things get worse and worse on the ground.
- [17:24]
B
Yeah, it certainly does. But as you say, the situation is getting worse and worse. Europe, which was already in the grip of an energy crisis, is now facing skyrocketing prices for heating oil, for gasoline. It's beginning to bleed into the political systems in all these countries. And so the crisis, whether Europe wants it or not, has arrived at its doorstep. And whether it can avoid the war is no longer clear.
- [18:03]
A
We'll be right back.
- [18:06]
B
I'm Jonathan Swan. I'm a White House reporter for the New York Times. I have a pretty unsentimental view of what we do. Our job as reporters is to dig out information that powerful people don't want published, to take you into rooms that you would not otherwise have access to to understand how some of the big decisions shaping our country are being made. And then painstakingly to go back and check with sources, check with public documents, make sure the information is correct. This is not something you can outsource to AI. There's no robot that can go and talk to someone who was in the Situation Room and find out what was really said in order to get actually original Information that's not public, that requires human sources. We actually need journalists to do that. So, as you may have gathered from this long riff, I'm asking you to consider subscribing to the New York Times. Independent journalism is important, and without you, we simply can't do it.
- [19:02]
A
Mark, as unfair as it may seem to Europe, as much as they want to stay out of it, the war has affected the global economy, as you said, and Europe does depend heavily on the oil coming through the Strait. So they're implicated, whether they like it or not.
- [19:20]
B
Yeah, they are. There's an injustice in this, if you like. They didn't want to have anything to do with this war. They weren't consulted on it. They have deep reservations about it, and yet they can't stay out of it altogether because it has become their war as well. Across Europe, you see all kinds of signs of distress. In Germany, a gallon of diesel fuel is now over $9.
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A
Whoa.
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B
Natural gas price prices have skyrocketed. In Britain, you're seeing all kinds of potential political upheaval. Governments are beginning to talk about very costly bailout problems. Government's fiscal plans are being upended because suddenly there are these huge payments being demanded to cover these energy shortfalls. So across the continent, you just see a ripple effect where the war has changed everything.
- [20:16]
A
Okay. So there is, as you're noting, a real tension between not wanting to be involved at all, but also experiencing very real pain as a result of this war. I can also imagine that on top of all of that, Europe relies on the US for their security, and there is a risk in pissing Trump off, right?
- [20:39]
B
There is indeed. And in fact, one of the linkages that has been in the mind of every European leader is between this conflict and Ukraine. If you antagonize President Trump too much on Iran, he might pull American support from Ukraine. And that is, of course, a direct security concern for the Europeans. So there is a real sense of reliance on the part of Europe, on the United States, and a real reluctance to alienate the president so badly that he lashes out in other areas, for example, with tariffs.
- [21:16]
A
Right. I mean, we've seen in the past that Trump has punished countries with tariffs. But I'm actually wondering, Mark, if our European allies have become a little more emboldened to stand up to Trump than maybe they would have been in the past because the Supreme Court recently ruled that a lot of those tariffs were illegal. Do you think that was a factor here?
- [21:39]
B
I do. I think that the president had two levers. One was Ukraine, and The other was economic, through tariffs. And the Europeans were down, desperate to head off the worst of the tariffs. Well, now the Supreme Court has done a bit of their work for them. Doesn't mean there won't be any tariffs. But the White House is back to the drawing board on how they're gonna impose tariffs, what authorities they're gonna use. And it has left the situation much more murky, but also raised the prospect that Europe is not gonna face that particular form of leverage. And it is something that I think is causing them to feel somewhat bolder toward the president.
- [22:19]
A
And what about the domestic politics of this for these European leaders? How are these specific politicians dealing with the potential fallout of both getting involved or not getting involved at home?
- [22:33]
B
Well, it's interesting, and it differs depending on what party the politicians are from. In Italy, Giorgio Meloni, who is the leader of a far right party, has actually kind of developed a reputation as a Trump whisperer. She's viewed as someone who Trump trusts, who can talk to Trump, but she governs in a country where Trump is very unpopular. And in fact, in the last couple of weeks, the government lost a judicial reform referendum. And one of the reasons that they may have lost this vote is because of a public backlash on the war in Iran. So this has put Maloney in a very difficult position. In Britain, on the other hand, you have a Labor prime minister, Keir Starmer. He's worked very hard to cultivate a respectful relationship with President Trump. As we discussed discussed earlier, it didn't shield him from being insulted by President Trump. But in Britain, it's actually kind of worked in Starmer's favor because he's been able to show his independence and stand up to the president in a way that is popular with a lot of the voters in Britain who don't like Trump. So it's a different picture in different countries. But in all of these countries, the leaders are walking the same difficult balance, which is how do we stay out of a war that our publics, we don't like or support? But how do we look like we're doing everything we can to prevent an energy crisis from taking over our economies?
- [24:04]
A
But for now, as far as I understand it, they're still mostly holding the line on not getting dragged into the war, at least not in the way that Trump wants. And it seems as though our allies are essentially saying, look, we actually have no obligation to help in that way. The letter of the law under NATO is that you only get involved in wars to defend each other after you've been attacked. But Mark, does Trump have a point that the spirit of NATO is that the allies lock arms and act together in extreme circumstances? Take Ukraine, for example. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and yet after Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine, the US Got involved and spread spent billions of taxpayer dollars to help. So is Trump's expectation that the Europeans should step up now fair?
- [25:01]
B
Well, that is certainly how Donald Trump and his allies see it. And as you say, they cite Ukraine as a perfect example of why Europe should step up in this case. But if you look at the history of NATO and if you talk to historians of the alliance, it's really not a very good analogy. NATO members are not obligated to blindly follow the military adventures of other members, particularly if they think they're unwise or poorly thought out.
- [25:30]
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Right.
- [25:31]
B
And the best example of this is back in the 1950s, the Suez crisis, when Britain and France allied with Israel in an operation against Egypt and the United States stepped in to oppose it because they thought it was wrongheaded. It caused severe strains in the alliance, but it laid a predicate for the way NATO members should behave, particularly if they don't support what another NATO member is doing. So the history of NATO is not one of unanimity in every conflict. It is, after all, an alliance of democratic countries who have their own democracies and their own political systems to deal with. So I think the obligation for a NATO member is to give another NATO member a fair hearing to listen to their argument and if they support it, to join the but absent Article 5, they are not obligated to do so. And in this case, they have decided not to. You saw it in Iraq, but even before that you saw it in the Suez crisis.
- [26:36]
A
So given everything you've described, this tightrope that our European allies are walking, what do they do? What are their options?
- [26:45]
B
Well, they don't have great options, but they are working on a couple of different levels. On a diplomatic level, the Europeans are continuing to deploy what have been tried and true weapons in the past. King Charles is going to the United States on a state visit.
- [27:02]
A
Trump loves the royals.
- [27:03]
B
Trump loves the royals. And although there have been some voices in Britain asking why is this a good time for King Charles to go to the US they're forging ahead with the trip. And I think their calculation is that it will buy them some goodwill. It will be a reminder to the president of why he values Britain as an ally, and it will maybe smooth out some of these rough edges for the Europeans as a whole. On a more gritty operational level, they are starting to make plans for how to secure the Strait of Hormuz after this war is over. The British organize a virtual conference call of 35 countries to talk about what this coalition might look like, what countries would contribute to it, what sorts of military assets would be deployed, whether it would be minesweepers or escort, escort ships. And there's going to be further, even more operational meetings about putting this whole coalition together. This coalition does not include the United States, much as the coalition of the willing that the Europeans have put together to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine also doesn't include the United States. But really, both of these efforts underscore the limitations the Europeans face. In the case of Ukraine and the coalition of the willing, there's a general recognition that unless the United States stays involved, offers some form of security guarantees, this whole effort really doesn't have a lot of teeth to it. And likewise, I think, with the coalition that would secure the Strait of Hormuz, if the United States doesn't put its military might and its credibility behind an effort to keep the strait open, it's really highly unlikely that the Europeans are going to be able to do it on their own. So while these efforts show how Europe is grappling with, if you will, a post American world, it's also revealing why the United States remains such a central part of the equation.
- [29:07]
A
Yeah, we've been talking a lot about the divergence between the US and its European allies, but what you're saying raises the question of how viable it is for the two sides to split, for this relationship to actually rupture long term. It does. It doesn't seem possible, really. Both sides are truly invested in it.
- [29:32]
B
Yeah, that's right. Europe and the United States are really almost like a married couple that's hit a very rough patch. They may be even living in different houses, but they share so many assets, they have so many common interests, that the price of splitting is perhaps even higher than the pain of figuring out how to stay together for yourself. Staring down the barrel of an economic crisis and a security crisis, the price of divorcing from the United States is still probably too painful.
- [30:16]
A
Well, Mark, thank you so much.
- [30:19]
B
Thank you, Natalie.
- [30:25]
A
On Easter Sunday, after receiving no assistance from US Allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz, Trump again threatened Iran, suggesting he would strike Iranian energy infrastructure on Tuesday if the regime didn't end its blockade. In a profane social media post, Trump said, open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Hell Just watch. We'll be right back.
- [31:09]
B
In theory, I knew that this kind of thing can happen in any family. Upstanding citizens are always turning out to be secret criminals, and I wouldn't even call my cousin Alan an upstanding citizen. But it's one thing to know and another thing to understand. Alan. Murder me. What the hell was Alan thinking? From Serial Productions and the New York Times, I'm EM Gessen, and this is the Idiot. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts,
- [31:40]
A
Here's what else you need to know today. On Saturday night, US Forces executed what's been described as one of the most challenging and complex missions in the history of US Special operations to rescue the service member whose fighter jet was shot down in Iran, the first loss to enemy fire since the start of the war. Initially, neither the Americans nor the Iranians knew where the injured officer was hiding in a mountain crevice after he ejected from the cockpit of his jet. The airman, a weapons system officer, evaded capture for more than 24 hours, at one point hiking up a 7,000 foot ridgeline while he was hiding. The CIA had initiated a deception campaign to try to convince Iranian forces that the area airman had already been rescued and was moving out of the country. After the agency identified his location, US Attack aircraft dropped bombs and opened fire on Iranian convoys to keep them away from the area. In the end, Navy SEAL Team 6 commandos extracted the officer, who was then flown into Kuwait for medical treatment. President Trump celebrated celebrated the rescue on social media, saying we got him, and noting that there were no casualties among the rescue team. Trump said the airmen had sustained injuries but would be just fine. Today's episode was produced by Caitlin o', Keefe, Mooj Zaidi, Astha Chaturvedi and Michael Simon Johnson. It was edited by Maria Byrne and Brendan Klinkenberg with help from Paige Cowett, and contains music by Diane Wong, Marion Lozano and Dan Powell. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. That's it for the Daily I'm Natalie Kitrilev. See you tomorrow. With Vrbo's last minute deals.
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