To Canada’s knowledge, no formal request to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been made to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said after U.S. President Donald Trump’s public appeal to that effect, as the oil shock from the Iran war continues.
On Monday, Trump called on members of NATO — which includes Canada — and other nations to help the U.S. secure the Strait, which Iran has throttled for two weeks and through which around 20 per cent of the world’s oil supply passes.
“To our knowledge, a request has not been made to NATO for the type of assistance that is being requested and Canada, as a founding member of NATO, continues to support the principles of collective defence,” she said.
“At this point, it’s important to remember that those conversations among NATO allies have not occurred.”
On Monday, Trump said “numerous countries” had told him they were “on the way” to help the U.S. with the Strait of Hormuz.
“We strongly encourage the other nations to get involved with us and get involved quickly and with great enthusiasm,” he said.
However, Trump said in a Truth Social post Tuesday that “most” NATO allies had rebuffed his request.
“The United States has been informed by most of our NATO ‘Allies’ that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran, in the Middle East,” Trump wrote, “despite the fact that almost every Country strongly agreed with what we are doing, and that Iran cannot, in any way, shape, or form, be allowed to have a Nuclear Weapon.
Get daily National news
Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you’ll never miss the day’s top stories.
“Because of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer “need,” or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance — WE NEVER DID! Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea. In fact, speaking as President of the United States of America, by far the Most Powerful Country Anywhere in the World, WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!”
Anand said it would be “prudent” for Trump to “turn to the principles upon which NATO was founded, and in particular the principles of collective defence and deterrence, which are triggered by NATO as a whole, not by one country within the NATO family.”
She reiterated Canada’s position that Ottawa was not consulted before the U.S. and Israel launched military action in Iran and added that Tehran’s blockage of the Strait of Hormuz was contrary to international law.
In his post, Trump repeated comments he made to reporters at multiple White House events on Monday that he believed NATO is a “one way street — we will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need.”
The only time NATO’s Article 5 commitment to mutual self-defence has ever been invoked was after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
In October 2001, the U.S. called upon NATO allies to participate in an international coalition in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda, which had used the country as its base, and the group’s Taliban hosts. Dozens of countries answered the call, including Canada, which lost 158 military personnel and a Canadian diplomat between 2001 and 2014 when Canadian forces withdrew.
Trump angered NATO allies in January when he told Fox News in an interview that non-U.S. troops “stayed a little back, a little off the front lines” in Afghanistan.
At the time, Trump was repeatedly questioning whether the transatlantic military alliance would come to the aid of the U.S. while defending his push to acquire Greenland from Denmark, a NATO ally.
In a Financial Times interview on Sunday, Trump said NATO would suffer a “very bad future” if it did not help the U.S. in the Middle East.
“It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the Strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there,” Trump told the Financial Times.
“If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.”
The U.S. was hitting Iran “very hard,” Trump said.
“They’ve got nothing left but to make a little trouble in the Strait … these people are beneficiaries and they ought to help us police it,” he said, adding that “China should help too,” citing China’s energy dependence on oil from the Strait of Hormuz.
On Monday, Trump said some of his requests to countries for help was less out of need “but because I want to find out how they react.”
Trump said Tuesday that the U.S. has “decimated” Iran’s military.
“Their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their Anti-Aircraft and Radar is gone and perhaps, most importantly, their Leaders, at virtually every level, are gone, never to threaten us, our Middle Eastern Allies, or the World, again!” he wrote.
Iran fired new salvos of missiles and drones at its Gulf Arab neighbours on Tuesday as well as on oil infrastructure in the region, the latest sign that the war was far from over.
Defence Minister David McGuinty told reporters on Monday that Canada was “leaving the door open” to providing assistance to any Gulf nation that requires help in defending from Iranian attacks, but that so far it had not received any such requests.
“The question of the White House’s overture to NATO members and participation in the Strait of Hormuz is something that all NATO members are examining,” he said then.
“We’ve always managed to find a way to manage our relationship with the United States and we will manage our way through this as well.”
Leave a Reply