Over the weekend, France became the latest member of NATO to snub the United States. Its decision to restrict airspace access for U.S. military overflights transporting supplies to Israel may prove to be the moment President Donald Trump chose to walk away from the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Although French President Emmanuel Macron’s office told Reuters the decision aligned with policy in place since the war with Iran began on Feb. 28, three additional sources told the outlet it represented the first known instance of France denying airspace access to the U.S. military.
Trump responded to the move by escalating his criticism of our European “allies” to its sharpest level yet. He called out France directly in a Tuesday morning Truth Social post. He wrote, “The Country of France wouldn’t let planes headed to Israel, loaded up with military supplies, fly over French territory. France has been VERY UNHELPFUL with respect to the ‘Butcher of Iran,’ who has been successfully eliminated! The U.S.A. will REMEMBER!!!”
TURKEY IS THE NATO ALLY TRUMP SHOULD PRESSURE FIRST
In a separate post, he rebuked “all of those countries that can’t get jet fuel, like the United Kingdom” for their unwillingness to help secure the Strait of Hormuz. He suggested they either buy their oil from the U.S. or “build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT. You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!”
Trump repeated these points in his Wednesday night address to the nation.
He is not mistaken. France’s weekend rebuff follows a series of similar slights from across the alliance. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently made his position clear, stating, “This is not our war, and we’re not going to be dragged into it.” Italy, for its part, declined to authorize a U.S. military aircraft bound for the Middle East to land at Naval Air Base Sigonella in Sicily last week. Spain, meanwhile, has emerged as one of the alliance’s least cooperative members.
Our NATO allies’ hesitation to join efforts to confront one of the world’s most destabilizing actors may ultimately prove shortsighted, particularly when that threat lies in their own backyard. As Iran’s targeting of Diego Garcia, a U.S.-U.K. military base in the Indian Ocean about 2,500 miles away from Tehran, showed, the regime is now capable of striking cities in Western Europe.
While Trump could have delivered his message more diplomatically, it is one European nations cannot afford to ignore. The West faces a common enemy in Iran, one whose capacity to disrupt global stability through its control of the Strait of Hormuz poses serious risks to energy markets and regional security.
Like Winston Churchill sounding the alarm about the growing threat posed by Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, Trump stands alone in pressing our allies to recognize the gravity of the threat posed by Iran. Whether one agrees with his tone or his words, his argument that their complacency carries its own risks and that Europe, far more dependent on the oil that flows through the strait than the U.S., has the most to lose is being ignored.
In his speeches to Parliament, Churchill warned repeatedly that Hitler’s ambitions extended far beyond Germany’s borders and that concessions would only embolden him.
By contrast, Neville Chamberlain foolishly pursued a policy of appeasement, believing that negotiation could preserve peace. This approach culminated in the Munich Agreement of 1938, after which Chamberlain returned to Britain, declaring he had secured “peace for our time.” The agreement allowed Hitler to annex the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia, in exchange for promises of no further territorial expansion.
Those assurances quickly proved hollow. Hitler’s continued aggression validated Churchill’s warnings and marked the failure of appeasement. Ultimately, Britain and its allies were forced to confront the threat they had tried to avoid and were unprepared for.
History offers a clear lesson: Threats ignored rarely diminish — they grow. Europe faces a similar choice today.
If the alliance is to remain credible, its members must recognize that shared security requires shared resolve. The stability of critical arteries such as the Strait of Hormuz and the broader balance of power cannot be safeguarded by one nation alone, particularly one with a foot already out the door of the alliance.
TRUMP PRAISES GULF ALLIES WHILE CRITICIZING NATO AT MIAMI SPEECH
What, exactly, do they hope to achieve by repeatedly rebuffing the U.S.? Is this an effort to curry favor with the millions of Muslims who have flooded their countries over the past couple of decades? Or are they seeking to appease what remains of Iran’s tyrannical regime?
The moment calls for unity and resolve, not retrenchment. The question is not whether the threat is real, but whether the West will confront it together or, once again, wait until the consequences become impossible to ignore.