Longtime ally cuts off military sales to US over Trump’s war

President Donald Trump's decision to join Israel in a joint military assault on Iran has seen numerous allied nations decide against providing assistance, with the latest move seeing a longtime partner cutting off all military sales.

Per a report from The New Republic, the government of Switzerland prohibited the nation's defense companies from making sales to the U.S., citing a decision to remain neutral in the ongoing Iran conflict.

“The export of war materiel to countries involved in the international armed conflict with Iran cannot be authorized for the duration of the conflict,” ⁠the Swiss government's statement read. “Exports of war materiel to the USA cannot currently be authorized.”

As The New Republic explained, Switzerland is home to several weapons manufacturers, including small firearms producers like SIG Sauer AG, B&T AG, Rheinmetall Air Defence and RUAG Ammotec. SIG Asuer AG, in particular, announced a "massive contract" with ICE last summer to continue providing service pistols for federal immigration enforcement agents through 2027.

"This will likely only further anger President Donald Trump, who has spent the better part of a week oscillating between begging U.S. allies to help him protect the Strait of Hormuz and pretending everything is actually fine," The New Republic's report detailed. "The vast majority of countries called upon — Germany, Poland, Spain, the U.K., Japan, and now Switzerland — have left him to clean up his own mess."

Critics of Trump's approach to foreign policy and the Iran conflict have accused him of "trashing American allies as freeloaders" for years on end, then turning around and demanding assistance during major conflicts. Writing for The Bulwark earlier this week, Andrew Egger argued that the lack of help from key allies in managing the Iran war has left Trump "unable to finish" the conflict he started.

"President Trump is begging for their help in opening the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway adjacent to Iran sometimes referred to as the 'jugular' of the world economy," Egger wrote. "Those allies aren't exactly jumping at the chance to join Trump's war on Iran — not a single one has taken the offer. That leaves the president trapped in a needless war of choice that he started and is unable to finish. Iran's leverage over the global economy is increasing as oil prices rise and the strait remains closed to the U.S. and its allies. Now, basically anyone could have told Trump that spending the past few years antagonizing allies with aggressive tariffs, belligerent arm-twisting, and imperial dismissiveness would hurt him when the time came to ask those same allies for help."

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