Trump threatened to halt arms supplies to Ukraine if Europe does not help with Iran

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to completely halt deliveries of American weapons to Ukraine if European allies do not join a military coalition to lift the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

This was reported by the Financial Times.

The strait has remained closed for more than a month since the start of the war against Iran. About one-fifth of global oil supplies pass through this route.

As the newspaper’s sources claim, Trump last month demanded that NATO countries’ naval forces take part in an operation to reopen the strait, but European capitals refused, saying that this conflict is “not our war.”

In response, according to the report, the U.S. president warned that he was ready to stop weapons deliveries through the PURL program — a Europe-funded mechanism for purchasing arms for Ukraine — and did not rule out a complete end to American support for Kyiv.

Kyiv receives American weapons through the PURL program (Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List), agreed in the summer of 2025. Under it, the Ukrainian side compiles a monthly list of needed weapons, which are then purchased from the United States by European countries.

As a result, at the insistence of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, a group of countries, including key alliance members France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, on March 19 urgently published a statement saying they were ready “to contribute to relevant efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.”

One of the newspaper’s sources said that Rutte was the one who insisted on the joint statement because Trump had threatened to leave Kyiv without supplies.

“The statement was then drafted quickly, and other countries joined it later, because there was not enough time to invite everyone to sign it immediately,” the FT source said.

According to another source, Rutte told European leaders that Trump had become “quite hysterical” over the allies’ refusal to support the Middle East operation.

After the start of the U.S. and Israeli military operation against Iran, Tehran restricted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. In mid-March, Trump called on European and Asian countries to send ships to the strait. At that time, more than 30 countries, including the United Kingdom, France, and Japan, said they were prepared to contribute to ensuring safe passage through it. Germany, Finland, and Sweden, however, refused.

In addition, as The Washington Post reported, the United States may use weapons intended for Ukraine in the Middle East. The Financial Times had also reported that the United States had depleted stocks of critical munitions that had been built up over several years. Rutte, for his part, assured that American weapons supplied under the PURL mechanism would continue to be delivered to Ukraine despite the demands of the war in the Middle East.