🖕“Post-NATO Care” Edition

After spending days urgently asking allies—and, at one point, even China—for help cleaning up the global oil crisis caused by his own war, President Trump has now reached the next logical stage of diplomacy: declaring he never wanted their help anyway.

Frustrated that NATO countries, Europe, and basically anyone with a navy responded to his coalition pitch with variations of “go f*** yourself,” Trump took to social media to clarify that the United States is so powerful it doesn’t need help from anyone, ever, including the people he was just calling.

“WE NEVER DID!” he announced, in what historians may later identify as the foreign policy equivalent of “I didn’t want to go to your party anyway.”

This marks a seamless transition from, “why won’t our allies help us?” to, “our allies are useless and we don’t need them,” all within roughly one news cycle.

Allies, for their part, cited minor concerns like not wanting to join a war they didn’t start, while Trump expressed shock that countries he’s spent years threatening, tariffing, and insulting were not eager to deploy their militaries on his behalf.

Behind the scenes, even his own allies described him as the angriest they’ve ever seen, presumably because nothing is more infuriating than discovering that alliances require… allies.

Meanwhile, the underlying problem remains:

• The Strait of Hormuz is still blocked

• Oil markets are still in chaos

• And the coalition to fix it still exists primarily as a concept

But the messaging is now crystal clear: America doesn’t need help. It just keeps asking for it.

Adam Zyglis - cagle.com/zyglis

Robert Ariail - Andrews McMeel

Chris Britt - Creators

Jack Ohman - Substack and Tribune Content Agency

Pedro Molina - Tinyview and Tribune Content Agency

Mike Luckovich - Creators

Clay Bennett - Tribune Content Agency

Drew Sheneman - Substack and Tribune Content Agency

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