The UK and Australia both refused to join the US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, leaving Washington to enforce the operation alone hours after Trump claimed allied support that neither country had agreed to.
Trump announced on Truth Social that “other countries will be involved” in the blockade. Neither London nor Canberra had been consulted.
The British government said it would not participate. A government spokesperson said the UK was “urgently working with France and other partners to put together a wide coalition to protect freedom of navigation.” Starmer had already been direct in an ITV interview: “We are not going to be dragged into this war.”
Trump had told Fox News that “the UK and a couple of other countries are sending minesweepers” to the strait. London denied it within hours. The UK has mine-hunting drones in the region but has framed their deployment as a freedom-of-navigation measure separate from the US blockade. Health Secretary Wes Streeting called Trump’s posts “incendiary, provocative, outrageous.”
Trump responded by comparing Starmer to Neville Chamberlain, a refrain that has become routine. Relations soured after Starmer declined to allow US forces to use British bases for the initial Iran strikes, though the UK later permitted their use for “defensive” operations.
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The UK has spent two weeks building a separate “Hormuz coalition” of more than 35 countries focused on diplomacy. The US is not part of it. A third meeting is scheduled this week.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed Australia had not been asked and would not join. “We’ve received no requests,” he told CNN affiliate 9 News. “They’ve made this announcement overnight, and they’ve done that in a unilateral way.”
His deputy foreign minister said lower petrol prices for Australians required a negotiated settlement, not a blockade. Albanese announced he would travel to Asia on Tuesday, with Foreign Minister Penny Wong visiting Brunei and Malaysia to secure alternative fuel supply arrangements — a signal that Canberra is pursuing energy security through diplomacy rather than military alignment.
Trump ordered the blockade after peace talks in Islamabad collapsed on Sunday. CENTCOM confirmed the operation targets Iranian ports specifically, leaving non-Iranian port traffic unimpeded — a narrower scope than Trump’s Truth Social posts suggested. No government has publicly confirmed joining the US operation.
Trump complained openly that Japan and South Korea — which source 93% and 45% of their oil through Hormuz, respectively — had not helped.
Columbia University energy scholar Karen Young warned that oil prices were unlikely to decline before the end of 2026, even after the war ends.
Iran’s Parliament Speaker posted a map of gas prices near the White House: “Enjoy the current price of gasoline. With what is being called a ‘blockade,’ you will soon miss $4 to $5 gasoline.”
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