The Trump Opportunity: A Grand Strategy for Europe
Trump wants to leave NATO and Iran. The allies should let him make their case.
Grüezi!
The Trump Opportunity
Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday that US forces will leave Iran “in two or three weeks.” He said a deal with Tehran wasn’t a prerequisite. He suggested the Strait of Hormuz was other countries’ problem.
Also Tuesday, Trump told Britain’s Telegraph that NATO was a “paper tiger” and that he was “beyond reconsideration” of US membership, and mocked Britain’s navy.
Hours later, the White House announced a primetime address to the nation on Wednesday evening.
Alarm bells are ringing in alliance capitals.
But there’s another question for the allies formerly known as America’s: is this an opportunity?
Trump’s threats are frightening not only because they weaken deterrence, but because they make alternatives thinkable that Europe and “the West” previously treated as taboo.
One of those alternatives is non-US security coordination. Another is a future in which Europe’s gas architecture runs through corridors that could, under different political conditions, carry or swap Iranian supply.
That doesn’t make Tehran a safe option or a benign one.
But it does make Tehran strategically relevant in a way that raises Europe’s leverage against both Washington and Moscow.
1. Iran holds the cards – and that might not be as bad as it sounds
If Trump walks away from Iran without reopening the Strait and without a deal, Tehran will end up in a stronger negotiating position than before the war started.
Iran’s foreign minister has already signalled that ships can transit Hormuz “in coordination with the competent Iranian authorities” – that’s the language of a would-be toll booth operator.
The instinctive Western response is to treat this as a disaster. But consider the alternative. Europe’s diplomatic framework for engaging Iran collapsed with the JCPOA.
Rebuilding a path to a comprehensive deal will require exactly the kind of patient dialogue and confidence-building that Europe once led – and that it abandoned when Washington forced its way into the driving seat.
Iran sitting at the table with leverage is uncomfortable. Iran with no reason to negotiate at all is worse.
The regime is weakened militarily but is still there.
Iran holds the world’s second-largest gas reserves. Europe has spent three years building a post-Russian gas architecture – LNG terminals, interconnectors, floating storage – that solved the immediate crisis but left it exposed to a different set of chokepoints and suppliers.
Under different political conditions, Iranian gas could diversify those corridors.
That is not an argument for overlooking what the regime is. It is an argument for recognising that an Iran you can negotiate with serves European interests better than an isolated one – and that the commercial dimension gives Europe leverage it currently lacks against both Washington and Moscow.
2. 35 nations go proto post-American
Keir Starmer announced today that Yvette Cooper will host representatives from 35 nations this week to assess diplomatic and political measures to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait. Military planners will act on the meeting’s outcomes.
France has been running parallel talks – its armed forces chief held a video conference with the same group last week to plan a “post-hostilities” mission, with the first phase focused on mine-hunting and the second on tanker protection.
Look at the joint statement published on GOV.UK on 19 March: the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, Canada, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, the UAE, Bahrain, and 23 other nations. That statement was not published on a US government website. It was not convened by Washington. It is conditional on the opposite of the American approach – de-escalation.
This isn’t just a Hormuz plan. It is a proof of concept for non-US-led security coordination among democratic and allied states.
The institutional habits being formed now could well outlast whatever happens in the Strait.
