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US President Donald Trump speaks during an event with Micheál Martin, the prime minister of Ireland, at the White House in Washington, DC, on March 17, 2026. (EPA/Yonhap)

Though US President Donald Trump declared Tuesday that America doesn’t need any “help” from its allies in defending the Strait of Hormuz, some see this as yet another pressure tactic aimed at getting US partners to join it on the war front. 

With reports indicating that the White House has been pressing allies to quickly express their support for the US’ efforts in the strait ahead of any specific military contribution, analysts are suggesting that Washington has not actually given up on its demands for partners to join it in policing the shipping channel, but has merely shifted its rhetorical strategy for pressuring allies. 

Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, Trump asserted that the US did not need any help. He also posted a message on social media declaring, “WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!”

This stood in sharp contrast with his actions just a day earlier, when he issued strong calls for allies such as South Korea, Japan and countries in Europe to participate in an operation to guard the Strait of Hormuz.

At the same time, there have been indications suggesting the opposite to be true, with Politico reporting the same day that the Trump administration had been strongly pressing European and Asian allies to make public pledges of support for the strait by this weekend. For now, the White House was reportedly focusing more on quickly eliciting expressions of support, ahead of concrete military contributions such as warship deployments.

Multiple European officials told Politico that the Trump administration clearly appeared to be prioritizing the market response over anything else.

“Even just a note of public support could help reassure increasingly dismayed investors, and perhaps give the Trump administration a framework of cooperation to build on later,” the Politico piece said, suggesting that Washington’s aim may be to establish a visible framework for an alliance as a way of allaying market jitters, including sharply rising global oil prices.

Based on these developments, Trump’s harshly worded condemnations and assertions about not needing help could be meant as a tactic to ratchet up public pressure by framing allies as “freeloaders,” using this as leverage to exact basic declarations of political support.

This is not the first flip-flop shown by Trump since the US launched its operation in Iran.

He initially demanded Iran’s unconditional surrender as a condition for ending the war, insisting that death was the only other option. But he later shifted the goalposts by saying the war would end when the US’ military goals had been deemed accomplished.

Regarding the duration of the conflict, he originally projected it would last four to five weeks, then stated that it was a short-term operation that would soon be over. Afterward, he insisted there was “not enough winning yet,” adding to the confusion.

He has also flip-flopped on the issue of Kurdish involvement in the Iran war. After originally stating that he fully supported Kurdish strikes on Iran, he later said the war was “complicated enough without getting the Kurds involved.”

He effectively backtracked on regime change being the goal of the war, stating that its aim was to achieve military targets instead. After urging the Iranian people to take control of the government at the time hostilities were opened, he refrained from mentioning regime change in later comments. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth likewise stressed that it was “not a so-called regime-change war.”

Some predict that Trump’s real intention behind his remarks about not needing help would become apparent in a US-Japan summit scheduled to take place in Washington on Thursday. While the US is lacking in independent naval mine-clearing capabilities, Japan is seen as having the world’s strongest capabilities in that area.

Since it is clear what role the US wants Japan to play, the meeting is likely to provide a gauge of its actual intentions for its allies.

By Kim Won-chul, Washington correspondent

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