The German government has pushed back firmly against US President Donald Trump's call for a NATO deployment to secure the Strait of Hormuz, with both the government spokesperson and the Defence Minister making clear that Berlin will not be sending military forces to the region. The Strait of Hormuz has been closed to international freight shipping since the start of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February, and Trump has called for an international naval operation to secure the critical waterway.
Government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius was direct in his rejection of Trump's framing. "This is not NATO's war," Kornelius said on Monday in Berlin. "NATO is an alliance for the defence of alliance territory." He added that the alliance lacks a mandate for an operation to protect shipping in the strait. "I do not see the connection with NATO," he said.
Kornelius also reminded his audience that "the United States and also Israel did not consult us before the war, and that Washington explicitly stated at the start of the war that European help was neither required nor wanted." In that respect, this war was "not the business of NATO or the German government," he said.
Asked how seriously the German government was taking Trump's threats against NATO, Kornelius replied: "You have to take every word of the American president as a word of the American president. It speaks from a certain authority of the office."
Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) was equally unequivocal. There will be "no military participation," Pistorius said on Monday following a meeting with his Latvian counterpart Andris Spruds in Berlin. Germany is, however, prepared to contribute diplomatically to ensuring safe passage of ships through the strait.
Pistorius said the United States and Israel had chosen to attack Iran and were now threatening to drag Europe into the conflict. "What does Donald Trump expect a handful or two handfuls of European frigates to achieve in the Strait of Hormuz that the powerful American Navy cannot manage there on its own?" He said he saw "absolutely no reason" to seek a Bundestag mandate for a Bundeswehr deployment in the Persian Gulf. "It is not our war. We did not start it," he stressed.
Pistorius pointed to the Bundeswehr's existing commitments as the reason Germany cannot and should not redirect its military focus to the Persian Gulf. "We bear responsibility for NATO territory, that is our primary responsibility," he said. The Bundeswehr's Lithuania brigade contributes to security in the Baltic region, and as Ukraine's largest supporter in the war against Russian aggression, Germany is already making decisive efforts, he added.
On the question of expanding the EU naval mission Eunavfor Aspides in the Red Sea to cover a possible operation in the Strait of Hormuz, Pistorius stressed that this would require a new Bundestag resolution. The Aspides mission is spatially clearly defined and was agreed against the backdrop of Yemeni Houthi militia attacks on ships in the Red Sea. It also does not apply "to an already ongoing military conflict between states," he said.
"What is happening in the Persian Gulf was triggered by the attack of the United States of America and Israel on the criminal regime of Iran," Pistorius said. This in turn was leading to the corresponding Iranian countermeasures and their consequences for the Persian Gulf. "This is a completely different geopolitical and military situation from the one that led to the Eunavfor Aspides mandate, and that is why it would require both a different international framework and a Bundestag resolution," he said.
Despite its firm rejection of military involvement, Berlin has made clear it wants to play a role in ending the conflict diplomatically. Kornelius reaffirmed the German government's offer to help bring the conflict to a resolution. "It is clear that the region must not slide into an endless war," he said. "That is why the German government is pushing for a swift plan to end the war."
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