President Donald Trump will use a primetime address Wednesday night to declare that the monthlong war in Iran is winding down, against a backdrop of spiking oil prices and increasingly dismal poll numbers.
The president has telegraphed that message in interviews, social media posts, and public comments over the past 24 hours, laying the groundwork for a speech that is expected to claim that all military objectives have been met, five people familiar with the planning and granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO, which like Business Insider is part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network. He also intends to harshly scapegoat NATO allies for the biggest unresolved matter of the war, Iran’s ongoing restrictions of shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House chief strategist, said the president will essentially declare victory, laying out what he’s achieved in Iran and what he will do before the US leaves along with “dumping on the NATO allies — it’s their issue.”
“Two, three weeks, definable objectives. ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’ — and we are hanging around a couple of weeks to conquer some more — maybe even then a ceasefire, while reiterating that the Hormuz situation is the Gulf Emirates’ and the Europeans’ to solve, and declare victory,” he added.
The president’s decision to deliver a major address about the war’s endgame, coming as an additional 2,500 US Marines make their way to the region, may be primarily an attempt to assuage voters’ concerns and Wall Street’s unease about energy markets and the knock-on effects of the strait closure.
With the conflict ongoing, the speech offers Trump an opportunity to lay out the war’s objectives, what amounts to victory and how he intends to move forward if ceasefire talks sputter. Politically, it’s a heavy lift for the president given the broad unpopularity of the Iran war and his own relative unease at delivering more scripted, formal remarks direct to camera.
“This is a big challenge for President Trump because it’s not his natural environment. It cannot be confrontational. It needs to be reassuring,” one of the people familiar said. “It needs to be very direct because he’s not just communicating with the American people but the Iranians, our allies in the region and our allies in Europe.”
The president’s first primetime address since the war began comes about two weeks ahead of an oft-repeated four-to-six-week timeline for military operations in Iran.
Although Trump has made several public statements declaring that indirect talks with Iran are making progress, there is little evidence that the two countries are anywhere close to an agreement — and some in the Iranian regime continue to insist that no talks are happening at all. In a social media post Wednesday morning, Trump asserted that Iran “has asked…for a CEASEFIRE!” But he added a key condition for accepting: “We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear.”
Declaring an end to the conflict with Iran still blocking the strait, which has driven oil prices over $100 per barrel, further clarifies Trump’s desire to find an off-ramp to a conflict that he initiated along with Israel 32 days ago. Although the president has not ruled out ordering ground forces to restore open navigation through the strait, or to seize Iran’s oil supply, he has in recent days taken to blaming European allies for not doing more to ease the bottleneck.
On Tuesday, after weeks of grumbling about NATO allies’ reluctance to send forces to Iran, Trump urged European allies to “build up some delayed courage” and “go get your own oil!” Hours later, the attacks ratcheted up further with the president threatening to formally withdraw the US from the alliance altogether. In an interview with The Telegraph newspaper in Britain, Trump called NATO a “paper tiger” and said he was reconsidering America’s role as the linchpin of the transatlantic alliance.
“I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration,” he said in an interview published on Wednesday.
A senior White House official, granted anonymity to speak freely, said that the president’s growing anger “is very real,” especially as European countries, including Italy and the United Kingdom, have barred American forces involved in the Iran war from using their bases and airspace.
Formally withdrawing the US from NATO would require a vote by the Senate, where the alliance enjoys strong support, including from the GOP. Trump, who first threatened to leave the alliance at its 2018 summit, has veered from hot to cold when it comes to NATO. He has a close relationship with Secretary General Mark Rutte and has praised allies for committing last year to increasing their defense spending to lighten the burden on the US.
But after launching the war against Iran in February without consulting European allies, Trump has grown agitated that those longtime allies — who Trump forced to take on the full burden of backing Ukraine in its ongoing war against Russia — haven’t been more willing to join in.
“It’s like these motherfuckers always talk about Article Five, Article Five, Article Five, Article Five, Article Five,” said a person close to the White House, who was also granted anonymity to share an unvarnished view of the president’s thinking, referring to the alliance’s principle that an attack on one is an attack on all. “Okay, well, Iran has been blowing up our soldiers and ripping their wings off for, you know, half a century, and we finally responded, and now they’re going after all our major non-NATO allies and the United States, and you guys are not only saying we’re not going to help but you’re closing your airspace to us — really?”
More than 20 nations have pledged to join a coalition to secure the Strait of Hormuz once the fighting has ended. But when Italy this week denied a US request for aircraft to land at a military base in Sicily, a decision Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni affirmed as being “in full compliance with existing international agreements,” it did not land well inside the White House.
“Now not only are they saying we’re not going to help, but they’re closing their airspace to us,” the person close to the White House continued. “These are not the actions of an ally.”
Trump was “frustrated” about the lack of support from Europe during a call on Wednesday with Finnish President Alexander Stubb, according to a person familiar with the call who was granted anonymity to share a readout. Stubb, one of the European leaders with whom Trump has a solid personal relationship, reassured the president that “a more European-led NATO is already happening,” the person continued.
Europeans, who are used to Trump’s threatening rhetoric and at times hostile posture, be it the imposition of tariffs or saber-rattling about seizing Greenland from Denmark, appear to be taking the latest outburst in stride.
“Nobody is buying the narrative he’s trying on Iran, the ‘I told you Europe wouldn’t help us,'” a senior EU official said.
A senior official from a non-NATO European country was similarly unsurprised by Trump’s new threat, suggesting that the continent was no longer under any confusion about the president’s priorities and dim view of the transatlantic alliance and its value.
“A possible withdrawal from NATO is just an attempt to reconsider the terms of providing security guarantees to Europe by the United States,” the senior official said. “The United States will no longer protect its allies through a common ideology and values — only for money, economic, and political concessions.”
Veronika Melkozerova and Ben Lefebvre contributed to this report.
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