The president of the United States, who started a war with Iran that has shut down one of the most critical oil chokepoints on Earth, went on Air Force One Sunday and casually admitted that maybe the U.S. “shouldn’t even be there at all.”
Read that again.
Donald Trump — the man who launched this war, who sent oil prices past $100 a barrel, who has American families paying through the nose at the pump — told reporters aboard Air Force One that the country he dragged into this conflict might not even need to be involved.
Trump: You could make the case that maybe we shouldn’t even be there at all pic.twitter.com/eksmDTpT3Y
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 16, 2026
“You could make the case that maybe we shouldn’t even be there at all because we don’t need it,” Trump said, referring to the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway off Iran through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil passes and which is now effectively shut down.
“We have a lot of oil,” he continued. “We were the number one producer anywhere in the world times two by double at least double.”
He then described the entire American military presence in the region as something the U.S. does “almost like we do it for habit.”
For habit.
He started a war — for habit.
The remarks came as Trump was discussing his demand that other countries send ships, including minesweepers, to help secure the strait. He said deployments would “start immediately” and that he was “demanding” these nations “come in and protect their own territory because it is their territory, it’s the place from which they get their energy.”
So let’s lay this out plainly: Trump started a war that shut down the Strait of Hormuz. That closure spiked global oil prices. Those prices are crushing American wallets. And now he’s begging other countries to come clean up the mess — countries he has spent months alienating with tariffs, insults, and demands that they hand over sovereignty to the United States.
Critics online were not gentle about this.
“So he started a war that should never have been started that he can’t finish and is now demanding others join,” wrote one user on Twitter.
Swedish economist Anders Åslund was blunter: “Such a stupidity! Trump started the war so he is responsible. Trump has raised the global oil price so he is responsible and the price hike hits all regardless of where they get their oil. How can the U.S. have such a dumb & rude president?”
Another user, Camille MacKenzie, put a fine point on the absurdity of Trump’s demand for international help: “Why would these other countries lift a finger to help him clean up the mess he made after he’s threatened more than half the world with insults, tariffs, and demand for other countries to give themselves over to the US? You don’t spit on others and” expect them to show up with minesweepers.
This is a president who has repeatedly contradicted himself on this war. He’s claimed it was necessary, claimed it was going well, claimed oil prices were someone else’s fault. And now he’s on his own airplane telling reporters that America probably doesn’t even need to be involved in the region he just set on fire.
The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply. Its closure has been a catastrophe for global energy markets, and ordinary Americans are paying for it every time they fill up their tanks.
Trump’s solution is to ask the countries he’s been bullying for help — while simultaneously admitting the whole thing might be pointless.
He said the U.S. does it “for some very good allies that we have in the Middle East.”
Those allies, for the record, have not sent minesweepers.