A growing number of U.S. allies are declining to take part in military efforts to secure the Strait of Hormuz, despite mounting pressure from Washington.

From Europe to the Indo-Pacific, governments are signaling reluctance to be drawn into direct military action, instead emphasizing diplomacy, legal constraints or limited defensive contributions.

Countries declining military involvement in reopening the Strait of Hormuz

France

France has ruled out any military role in securing the Strait of Hormuz, stressing a diplomatic approach. In an interview with FRANCE 24 last week, Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin said Paris is «not participating in this war.» 

«At this point, there is no question of sending any vessels to the Strait of Hormuz,» she explained. Vautrin also questioned whether Washington and Jerusalem share the same end goals in the conflict with Iran.

President Donald Trump, however, suggested Monday he expects support from French President Emmanuel Macron.

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«I think he’s going to help. I mean, I’ll let you know. I spoke to him yesterday. I don’t do a hard sell on them because my attitude is we don’t need anybody. We’re the strongest nation in the world. We have the strongest military by far in the world. We don’t need them,» Trump said at the White House. «But, it’s interesting. I’m almost doing it in some cases, not because we need them, but because I want to find out how they react.»

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Germany

Germany has rejected military involvement, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz stating the conflict falls outside NATO’s scope. «We will not participate in ensuring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz by military means. The war in the Middle East is not a matter for NATO,» he said in a post on X. «Therefore, Germany will also not become involved militarily.»

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrives at the White House on June 5, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Australia

Australia has declined to send ships to the strait despite U.S. calls for support. In an interview on ABC Radio National on Monday, Catherine King, minister for infrastructure, transport, regional development and local government, said, «We won’t be sending a ship to the Strait of Hormuz. We know how incredibly important that is, but that’s not something that we’ve been asked or that we’re contributing to.»

She noted Australia’s current contribution is limited to support in the United Arab Emirates, including providing aircraft to assist with defense given the number of Australians in the country.

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Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Catherine King (L) shakes hands with Governor-General Sam Mostyn (R) during a swearing-in ceremony at Government House in Canberra, Australia, on May 13, 2025. (Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images)

Ireland

Ireland has ruled out participation in any EU naval mission to reopen the strategic waterway. Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Micheál Martin told reporters ahead of his meeting with Trump, «We don’t have that offensive military capacity in any shape or form, so obviously it’s not something that’s on our agenda,» according to the Irish Examiner. «The world is in a very challenging situation and no one likes war. We certainly don’t as a country, and we want a specific resolution.»

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Spain

Spain has rejected any involvement in a Hormuz mission and called for an end to the war. 

Defense Minister Margarita Robles said, «We are on a defense and security mission in Cyprus and at this moment Spain is not considering any mission in Hormuz. What we are considering is the demand that the war end,» according to Spanish newspaper La Razón.

She described the conflict as an «illegal war that is causing many deaths.» 

Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares similarly argued to end the «spiral of violence» and «this escalation that does not have clear objectives.» 

Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles (L) and Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares (R) have rejected any military involvement in reopening the Strait of Hormuz. (Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu via Getty Images; Matias Chiofalo/Europa Press via Getty Images)

Countries signaling caution or limited involvement

United Kingdom

The U.K. has stopped short of committing to direct military action while emphasizing coordination with international partners. In a press conference on Monday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, «We will not be drawn into the wider war.» 

He called on allies and other European countries to «bring together a viable collective plan that can restore freedom of navigation in the region as quickly as possible.»

Keir Stamer, U.K. prime minister, speaks during a news conference providing an update on the situation in the Middle East, at Downing Street in London, U.K., on Thursday, March 5, 2026. (Tolga Akmen/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Japan

Japan is holding off on any deployment of naval escorts to the Middle East, citing legal constraints. Speaking in parliament during an Upper House Budget Committee meeting, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said, «No decision has been made whatsoever regarding the dispatch of escort vessels,» according to The Japan Times. «We are currently examining what Japan can do independently and what is possible within the legal framework.»

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Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi answers questions at a budget committee session of the House of Councillors in Parliament in Tokyo on March 16, 2026. (Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP via Getty Images)

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«Legally speaking, this is very difficult,» Takaichi added. «We are carefully examining what can be done within the scope of current laws and what is the best course of action at this time. At the same time, we are continuing to engage with Iran to help de-escalate the situation while also exchanging information with various countries.»

FIRST ON FOX: Internal Department of Justice emails obtained by Fox News Digital show prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith sought phone records in 2023 for a wide-ranging group of Republican lawmakers, including newly revealed names such as a current Trump administration official.

The email exchanges between prosecutors beginning Jan. 9, 2023, show Smith’s team mapped out a web of House and Senate lawmakers who interacted with key people in Smith’s probe into the 2020 election, including figures like President Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who led many of Trump’s unsuccessful legal challenges to the election results.

New names within the emails obtained by Fox News Digital include Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and then-Rep. Lee Zeldin, who now leads the Environmental Protection Agency.

«I’d like to seek [the Public Integrity Section’s] concurrence to get phone tolls for several MOCs who had contact with pertinent parties in our investigation,» wrote former DOJ lawyer Timothy Duree. «I’ll keep the timeframe tight—probably October 1, 2020, to January 31, 2021.»

The emails come as part of Smith’s investigation and prosecution of Trump over the 2020 election, which initially began as an FBI probe called Arctic Frost. Ongoing House and Senate Judiciary Committee investigations have revealed through various public disclosures that the Biden DOJ targeted a large web of Republican people and entities with subpoenas during the probe, but the lawmakers’ records requests have become a top source of scrutiny.

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Duree produced 16 names and said he wanted to discuss whether to «subpoena these all at once.» The list included Babin and Biggs and now former Reps. Mo Brooks, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Louie Gohmert, Zeldin and Jody Hice. The list also included Gohmert’s chief of staff Connie Hair, and seven senators whose names were previously revealed through public disclosures, such as Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.

Public disclosures previously showed that some of the 16 members’ phone records were indeed subpoenaed, but the new emails with new names, including Babin, Biggs and Zeldin, do not make clear if Smith ultimately executed subpoenas for their phone records. The phone records, also known as toll records, would have included dates, times and phone numbers but not the content of calls and messages.

Raymond Hulser, a prosecutor on Smith’s team, responded at one point in the January 2023 email chain by acknowledging the scale of the subpoena request.

«And please there’s no hurry this morning, [Duree]» Hulser wrote. «It just occurred to me that before we tell Main we are going to fire off subpoenas for so many members tolls I should make sure Jack’s aware.»

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Smith, who has since testified to the House Judiciary Committee about his work, has stood by the subpoenas, saying they were «entirely proper» and followed DOJ protocol. The Republicans who were targeted have, however, condemned the subpoenas as egregious violations of the Constitution’s speech or debate clause, which gives Congress members an added layer of immunity from investigations.

US Senator Chuck Grassley announces an FBI whistleblower says the FBI during the Arctic Frost investigation had subpoenaed the records of Republican elected officials in Congress, during a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, Oct. 6, 2025. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

In addition to members of Congress, public disclosures by the congressional committees revealed that Smith targeted hundreds of Republican-affiliated people and entities as he pursued charges against Trump. Smith eventually brought four criminal charges against the then-Republican presidential candidate alleging he illegally attempted to overturn the 2020 election results but dropped the case after Trump won the 2024 election, citing a DOJ policy against prosecuting sitting presidents.

In another email from the January 2023 email chain, Hulser directed Duree to check the Jan. 6 Committee’s report for members who interacted with Trump and Giuliani on Jan. 6, the day of the U.S. Capitol breach, underscoring how Smith’s prosecutors used the investigative work of the committee to help with their probe. Republicans have widely dismissed the since-disbanded Jan. 6 panel as hyper-partisan as it comprised seven Democrats and two vocally anti-Trump Republicans.

Hulser later said Smith wanted to «narrow» down the list of 16, leading Duree to provide a bolded list of names «we should get in the first round.»

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No. 1 on the list, for instance, read «Brian Babin (texts with Meadows; calls with Chip Roy, Perry, Ratcliffe, and Meadows).» Other names noted on the list followed a similar structure. Roy and Perry were known targets in Smith’s probe and previously revealed that they had their records subpoenaed by the special counsel’s team.

Fox News Digital reached out to a Smith representative for comment, as well as the current House lawmakers mentioned in the emails and Zeldin’s office.

En “una reflexión a la luz del Magisterio Pontificio”, el Vaticano publica un ensayo de Andrea Tornielli sobre la carrera al rearme y la urgencia de la paz en la que analiza “el riesgo del apocalipsis nuclear”. A la luz de cómo va la guerra que Estados Unidos e Israel mantienen contra Irán, el tema es de rigurosa actualidad.

“Una mirada realista no debería nunca olvidar que el riesgo de un apocalipsis nuclear aparece cada vez más cercano y, cuando se comienza a pensar como posible —aunque sea por hipótesis—, la total destrucción del otro no tiene en cuenta los datos de hecho sobre los cuales concuerdan todos los analistas, como la doctrina de la destrucción mutua asegurada por el uso a gran escala de armas atómicas por parte de un país atacante contra un país defensor, dotado de capacidad de un segundo golpe, que comportaría la destrucción de ambos”, explica.

Tornielli señala que “ninguna de las dos partes puede vencer porque el que golpea primero es destruido por la represalia”.

Andrea Tornielli (nacido en Chioggia, Italia, en 1964) es uno de los periodistas y escritores católicos más influyentes de la actualidad. Desde diciembre de 2018, por nombramiento del entonces Papa Francisco, es el responsable de coordinar toda la línea editorial de los medios vaticanos

En el mundo de hoy existen alrededor de 12 mil cabezas nucleares, el 90% de las cuales las poseen Rusia (5.459, de las cuales 1.718 están desplegadas) y Estados Unidos (5.177, con 1.700 desplegadas). El autor destaca que “las armas nucleares ya existentes poseen una potencia tal de poder destruir nuestra civilización centenares de veces, mientras bastaría una cincuentena para causar daños catastróficos globales”.

En cuanto a la guerra convencional, “hay que reconocer que especialmente hoy la tecnología lleva a la guerra con un potencial destructivo enorme, que perdura por mucho tiempo con el riesgo de no terminar nunca y de favorecer la expansión del terrorismo y la inestabilidad”.

La tecnología disponible, agrega, especialmente hoy lleva a guerras con un potencial destructivo enorme, “que perduran largo tiempo, con el riesgo de no terminar más o de favorecer la expansión del terrorismo y la inestabilidad”.

Andrea Tornielli escribe que “la única verdadera solución, que encontramos en el Magisterio de los Pontífices, es la de abandonar la deshumanidad de los conflictos que registran un creciente poder de muerte confiado a la Inteligencia Artificial, para volver a la humanidad de la diplomacia, del diálogo, de la negociación”.

Y avanzar al desarme, “que para los cristianos encuentra fundamento en las palabras de Jesús a Pedro en el Getsemaní: ‘Aparta la espada’, ha dicho León XIV el pasado 11 de octubre; es una palabra dirigida a los potentes del mundo, a aquellos que guían la suerte de los pueblos. Está dirigida al mismo tiempo a cada uno de nosotros, para hacernos cada vez más conscientes de que por ninguna idea, o fe, o política, podemos matar”.

Destaca que es necesario “desarmar antes que nada el corazón porque, prosigue el Papa, ‘si no hay paz en nosotros, no daremos paz’”. Y es la invitación del pontífice a “adquirir un punto diverso para mirar al mundo desde abajo, con los ojos de quien sufre, no con la óptica de los grandes”.

En el reciente Mensaje por la Jornada Mundial de la Paz 2026, León XIV escribió: “Los repetidos llamados a incrementar los gastos militares y las opciones que han seguido son presentadas por muchos gobiernos con la justificación de la peligrosidad de los otros. En efecto, la fuerza disuasiva de la potencia y, en particular, la amenaza nuclear, encarnan la irracionalidad de una relación entre pueblos basada no en el derecho, la justicia y la confianza, sino en el miedo y el dominio por la fuerza”.

El pontífice concluye, escribe Tornielli, que “frente a los escenarios de guerra cada vez más preocupantes” la única alternativa “es el desarme —cultural, político, espiritual—, la única alternativa a tener en consideración con seriedad porque abre una perspectiva diversa: un equilibrio basado en la confianza, la cooperación y la prevención”.

En los últimos días, el riesgo de un enfrentamiento nuclear se ha acentuado, sobre todo en los debates en Estados Unidos, pero también en Europa.