Trump’s coalition of the pressured

0:00Paul Hunter:You know that feeling when you reach the end of a really good true crime series? You want to know more. More about the people involved, where the case is now, and what it's like behind the scenes. I get that. I'm Kathleen Goldhar and on my podcast Crime Story, I speak with the leading storytellers of true crime to dig deeper into the cases we all just can't stop thinking about. Find Crime Story wherever you get your podcasts.

0:30Katie Simpson:This is a CBC podcast. 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. 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. Paul, Katie, some conflicting messaging going on there from U.S. President Donald Trump. But suffice it to say, he's been pretty underwhelmed by how reluctant some longtime U.S. allies have been to help the U.S. keep open the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping.

1:09Willy Lowry:Underwhelmed, but as Trump put it, the level of enthusiasm or lack thereof, those are my words, matters to me. On the one hand, he's saying Iranian forces are literally obliterated. But on the other hand, even today, saying, yeah, but I don't need you anyway to the rest of the world.

1:25Paul Hunter:And I'm joining everyone from Doha. Normally, I'd be there in the studio with you guys. But the main focus here in the region is what is it going to take for the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened and get shipping back up and running back to normal? All as, you know, leaders and defense systems are tested all across the Gulf region as Iran continues to fire missiles and drones at its neighbors.

1:49Katie Simpson:Katie, Ahlan Wasalan, so great to have you in Doha. And yet again, there's really only one possible topic of conversation this week, and it is the ongoing U.S. war in Iran, and more specifically, the impacts that it's having on the Strait of Hormuz, that critical shipping route just off the coast of Iran. Donald Trump might say he's not doing a hard sell, but he's spent a lot of time over the last few days pressuring other countries to help secure that narrow waterway so that oil exports from the Persian Gulf can resume. So this week, we're asking, can Trump pressure the world into fighting his war in Iran?

2:29Katie Simpson:I'm Willie Lowry.

2:30Paul Hunter:I'm Katie Simpson.

2:32Willy Lowry:And I'm Paul Hunter. We're CBC's Washington Correspondents, usually stationed where Willie and I are today, two blocks from the White House.

2:43Katie Simpson:so we're recording this tuesday afternoon katie you just arrived in doha a couple of days ago

2:49Paul Hunter:give us the lay of the land as soon as we arrived we were really given like an immediate understanding of some of the tensions of what it's like in everyday life here in qatar as we were crossing the border um almost as soon as we were sort of going through the customs process our phones our cbc team our phones started to get alerts warning that there was a heightened security threat. And we'd continue to get these alerts every couple of minutes, warning, stay inside, stay away from windows, stay away from glass, that kind of thing, until maybe about 20 minutes later, we got another alert saying, okay, the threat is no longer there.

3:22Paul Hunter:We later learned that the defense system here, they intercepted some 13 missiles. One missile did make it through a 14th, but it struck an uninhabited area. We didn't hear anything in that moment other than our alerts on our phones. So we got into Doha. And then early this morning, early Tuesday morning, I didn't hear my phone go off. But I was woken up when our hotel started to shake because there had been a missile interception not far. I don't know exactly where, but the government of Qatar did confirm that there had been another wave of attacks from Iran. And then in the afternoon, I want to say maybe around three o 'clock this afternoon, our phone started buzzing again.

4:02Paul Hunter:And then we heard three or four pretty loud explosions. We didn't see anything, but you could hear the explosions and the government confirming, yes, there had been another wave of missile attacks from Iran. The hotel shakes, you can hear it. It's pretty loud. It's pretty defined. And then we got another alert saying that the threat had ended. So that is sort of what it is like here in this moment.

4:24Katie Simpson:Well, very, very happy that you are safe. But I think it's a reminder that, you know, these missile defense systems that these Gulf countries have, the efficacy is so high that sometimes it almost makes it seem a lot less scary, a lot less dangerous than it really is. But if these missiles fall or strike their targets, it can obviously be a very deadly consequence. So happy that you are safe and happy that you are here to talk to us. I want to do a quick little debrief of where we are in the war. We are now entering the third week. According to differing sources within the U.S. government, that being either President Trump or Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the U.S.

5:08Katie Simpson:has hit between 7 ,000 and 15 ,000 targets inside Iran. Trump yesterday saying that there had been a 90 percent reduction in Iran's missile capabilities and 95 percent reduction in the country's drone capabilities. Obviously, leadership has been almost entirely wiped out. So a lot of activity going on, of course, still in this war.

5:35Willy Lowry:Literally obliterated, as Trump would put it, for the Iranian leadership. And meanwhile, in from as Katie, if you turned around and looked out the window, I don't know if you can see the water from where you are, but the Strait of Hormuz effectively at a standstill, paralyzed, causing economic havoc around the world, including in the United States, something that Donald Trump is very aware of. It's a mess right now. I mean, the United States, the Trump administration would say that they 100 percent anticipated trouble with the Strait of Hormuz. Trump critics saying it's quite clear you did not anticipate this level of pushback from Iran and the effect that it would have on shipping through the strait.

6:18Willy Lowry:But here we are. And the rest of the world is paying the price for it, like literally.

6:22Katie Simpson:Gas definitely going up. But let's get to our focus this week. Paul, how exactly has Donald Trump been applying pressure on other countries over the last few days?

6:31Willy Lowry:By literally calling the leaders of other countries and, in Trump's words, demanding that they line up with the United States on this. And to those who say no or maybe not or let me think about it, says Trump, we will remember. It's as if he's trying to create a coalition of the pressured into it. I like that. He basically comes down to five words. I'm demanding. These are words that Trump has said. And we will remember keeping score, keeping score. This is the United. It's hard to say no to the United States in any circumstance. And, you know, one of the things that sets Donald Trump apart on this issue and and effectively speaking, every other issue that we talk about is that you never know what he's going to do.

7:17Willy Lowry:Ask any country that has crossed paths with him on trade and tariffs. And you step one toe outside the line, and the next thing he does is slap more tariffs on you or the whole world. You never know what he's going to do, and that's the problem. So when he says, we will remember, well, what does that mean? When he says, I'm demanding, what does that mean? And what does it mean, by the way, when the next day, as he did today, I printed it up, all caps from Donald Trump on his Truth Social, We do not need the help of anyone. So even when he demands, you don't. Well, what if we do say no? What are the consequences?

7:53Willy Lowry:And nobody knows.

7:54Katie Simpson:And nobody knows. And now do does he still need their help? It's does he need their help? Exactly. Is the request still in? Is it still pending or has it been annulled? It is hard to kind of wrap your head around. Katie, Trump has been pretty effusive in his praise of countries like Qatar and the UAE. What has been their, call it, involvement or position thus far?

8:23Paul Hunter:Well, the general view here is that no one really wants to see this conflict expand any further than it already is in this moment. And leaders do not want to be in a position where they're seen as doing something that could be considered on the military offensive. So much has been defensive, fending off these missile attacks and drone attacks from Iran. And keep in mind, another part of the perspective here is that Iran has crossed so many red lines by launching these attacks on its Gulf state neighbors, that it really has angered a lot of the leaders in this region. You know, the foreign minister of Qatar, he's accused Iran of targeting civilian centers, of targeting infrastructure.

9:02Paul Hunter:And it really hammers home that it has crossed some red lines that these countries are now looking at this from maybe a different perspective.

9:08Katie Simpson:And I think that's a really good point, those red lines. Paul, the U.S. is trying to build a coalition of countries to help America and Israel in this war. How is this different from other times that the U.S. has tried to build coalitions?

9:22Willy Lowry:Well, not least that it's coming after the fact. I mean, to listen to the Trump administration as to why now, it's because an opportunity arose, right? But what's, you know, the easy comparison is to go back to 2003 when the U.S. went into Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction and all the talk and all the attempts to build the coalition of the willing, I guess it was called then, right? Test our memory. Long time ago, not that long ago. Well, none of that happened this time. Trump has gone around to the world after Trump starts the war and says, join us, or I'm demanding that you join us. He didn't make the case before.

10:02Willy Lowry:He hasn't really made the case since, I think it could be argued. And so what do we get? We get Germany. Germany's defense minister yesterday saying, we have a situation which we did not provoke, which we did not cause at all. So Germany's out. We heard from the U.K. is unlike Tony Blair in 2003, later labeled George W. Bush's lapdog for buying into it. Keir Starmer is staying out. So but, you know, who Trump today called. What do you say? He's no Winston Churchill or something like that. It's his go to line on Starmer these days. Exactly. But the big difference or a big difference now is the absence of goodwill toward the United States from other countries.

10:46Willy Lowry:Again, to think back to 2003, Canada stayed out of the war on Iraq. Canadians broadly were strongly opposed to it. So Jean Chrétien, prime minister at the time, had domestic politics to worry about. He stayed out, but Canada sent troops to Afghanistan. And it could be argued that every Canadian set of boots on the ground allowed an American soldier who otherwise would have been in Afghanistan to be in Iraq, let's just say.

11:15Katie Simpson:It's an interesting perspective.

11:17Willy Lowry:There was goodwill between Canada and the United States, even though Canada's state, George W. Bush, wanted as many countries as he could possibly get into the coalition of the willing. Right. So there was a lot of goodwill towards America post 9-11. But that's absent now because Trump has antagonized the world.

11:35Katie Simpson:And, you know, the last year, he's not only challenged these traditional relationships on the war in Afghanistan, multiple on multiple occasions. He's essentially suggested that NATO didn't do much, that they stayed. What is what was it? A little behind the front lines. Outrage in Denmark over that, even in the UK. hey, you know, there are clearly repercussions to this kind of, call it diplomacy or lack thereof. Perhaps we could dub this the coalition of the unwilling. You liked that, didn't you? I just thought, for the record, I just thought of that. But on Monday, when he was speaking to reporters, Donald Trump talked about a number of specific allies.

12:23Katie Simpson:And we've referenced this. He's really seemingly keeping score. He needled France and suggested French President Emmanuel Macron might help out. He also took a shot at UK's Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Prime Minister of UK, United Kingdom yesterday, told me, I'm meeting with my team to make a determination. I said, you don't need to meet with the team. You're the Prime Minister. You can make your own. Why do you have to meet with your team to find out whether or not you're going to send some minesweepers to us or to send some boats? I said, you don't have to meet with your team. Katie, who needs advisors?

13:01Paul Hunter:You know, I think it reveals a lot about how Donald Trump operates in his own White House, right? We've known when you take a look at how Canada had to deal with Donald Trump in his first term versus his second term, we know that from behind the scenes in the first term there were people around Donald Trump who did act as traditional advisors and did advise him and understand we understand that whoever sort of had Donald Trump's ear last whoever got that last piece of advice in there had huge influence and it could really help if you know Canada was trying to get something related to you know a trade deal or something like that but in Trump 2.0 the Canadian experience is that it's Trump and Trump alone and that advisors can say anything they want it comes down to Trump and Trump alone so I think that just reveals a little bit about what's going on in the White House in this moment.

13:48Paul Hunter:But it's almost as if the president is trying to publicly shame these leaders into joining the U.S. But at this point, given Trump's history and the way we see Trump interact, whether it's on domestic issues, whether it's on foreign affairs issues, this is how Donald Trump acts. And it says more about him than it does the leaders that are rebuffing his efforts to get more support.

14:15Katie Simpson:If you've ever wished someone would explain what's going on with reproductive rights without feeling overwhelmed and alone, hi, welcome. I'm Jenny Wetter, host of Repros Fight Back, where we make sense of the headlines from shifting abortion bans to contraceptive fights and attacks on LGBTQ rights and gender-affirming care. We talk to experts on the front lines and share real actions you can take. You'll walk away thinking, okay, this is hard, but I'm not alone, and it's all making a little more sense. Listen to ReproSite Back wherever you get your podcasts. Paul, considering America's military might, something that Trump has repeated and referenced many, many times over the last few weeks, why does he even want help?

14:57Willy Lowry:I think an argument can be made. It's for the moral authority to do this, right? The more the more members in the coalition, the more everybody is on the right side of history. You could allow yourself to think. But you don't know, right? When Trump says that they've literally obliterated the Iranian forces, and yet he still needs military help, not just the moral authority, but military help to do this. I'm not sure what the world is meant to take away from that. And I think the world is asking itself the same question. Like, why are you demanding help from us when at the same time you say you don't need it?

15:37Willy Lowry:You're trying to shame us into it by saying, well, we help you, you know, and now it's your turn to help us. And yet you say you don't need it. Well, what are we supposed to do, says the world to Donald Trump? And I don't think the world knows the answer. And even when you think you suggest, as France did, that you might find a way to do something around the edges. Trump comes back and takes a shot at you anyway and says, well, that's, you know, it's not perfect, but that's France. Right. You know.

16:03Katie Simpson:But he gave he gave Macron eight out of 10. He gave him an eight out of 10. On a scale of zero to 10, I'd say he's been an eight. Not perfect, but it's France. I'd take an eight out of 10. Katie, anything you want to add on that?

16:18Paul Hunter:You know, I feel like with Donald Trump and the conversations we have around Donald Trump, we sort of get to a point where it doesn't matter what the situation is. We all come back to the same point. That is, we don't know. We don't know. because even though this is a person who's been in American political life, this is the second term of his presidency, we have a whole huge history of how he operates and what he's going to do. And we're still at this point where things are so unpredictable that anytime you sit down and have a conversation, whether it's in a podcast format, whether it's around the dinner table with your friends, whether it's at a bar, it doesn't matter whether it's with Canadians or with Americans, that we get to this point where it's like, well, who knows what he's going to do?

17:09Paul Hunter:And that's that's if there's one consistent, that is the only thing. That's it.

17:14Willy Lowry:People have often said of Trump that he has spent his life getting his own way every single time. And I think those people would wonder if that's part of what is going on here as well. He wants it because he always gets what he wants. And if he decides today that he wants other countries to do his bidding, that's what he's going to do. And if he decides tomorrow that he doesn't want them, so be it.