AGENCIES

It’s not their war. But it’s becoming their political and economic nightmare. World leaders who opposed the US-Israeli attack on Iran are being torn between Donald Trump’s ire at their failure to join the conflict and electorates who are deeply hostile to the war and America’s president.

Their dilemma is shifting the dynamic between the US and its allies. Leaders who once tried to appease and flatter the world’s most powerful man are now daring to criticize him and seeking distance.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Monday said Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo XIV were “unacceptable.” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose friendship with Trump shattered over the war, said last week he was “fed up” that Britons were facing higher energy bills because of Trump’s actions.

Relations between Trump and Starmer took another turn for the worse on Wednesday. The president hinted in an interview with Sky News that he could try to change terms of a trade deal that is a huge priority for the British government.

Starmer however insisted that he would not pushed into joining the war on Iran.

Leaders are reacting to war consequences they can’t control, epitomized by an International Monetary Fund warning Tuesday that the world is trending toward an “adverse” scenario of only 2.5 percent growth this year, down from 3.4 percent in 2025.

Countries reliant on Middle East gas and oil supplies could fare worse. The IMF forecasts made clear that the Iran conflict is more than a distant foreign policy crisis for allied governments. It has become a domestic and political threat. This, combined with growing antagonism between allied leaders and the US president, means that standing with him would be a liability.

Trump seems to believe he’s popular abroad and argues that his displays of American power have made the United States more feared and respected than ever as the “hottest” nation on the planet.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the tip of the spear of Trump’s trade wars with allied nations, on Tuesday sought to minimize the impact of the Iran war on non-combatant nations, saying that the IMF “probably overreacted.”

European leaders might be becoming more overt in their criticisms of Trump. But they have only so much rope. Their positions are frequently undercut by their greatest liability in relations with the US — their weakened militaries.

When Trump mulls withdrawing from Nato, he is playing a significant card: Serious rearmaments in Europe could break governments because of the unpopular cuts in health and social programs they would entail.

So even as they turn on Trump for their own political preservation, his estranged European counterparts cannot risk a total break with the United States.

But the more the president demands their entry into an unpopular war, the less political room they have to help him end it.