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Trump Says US Fighting Iran War ‘To Help Israel... Saudi Arabia... Qatar... UAE... Kuwait’—China Too
"Trump again says the quiet part out loud—America entered the Iran war to support a genocidal ethno-state and brutal absolute autocracies, all of whom are his political and commercial financiers."
May 15, 2026
During his campaign for reelection, one of President Donald Trump's central pitches was that the US needed to stay out of foreign wars in order to prioritize "America first."
But his decision to join Israel and launch a massive war with Iran, which has caused turmoil across the American economy, has left many voters rather skeptical of these motivations, believing the war benefits other nations—particularly Israel—more than the US.
That perception has not been assuaged by statements from officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who acknowledged in the early days of the war that a so-called "imminent threat" to the US only existed because Israel had planned to attack, or by the president's recent comment that he doesn't "think about Americans' financial situation" regarding the war.
In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News on Thursday, Trump appeared to further affirm that the Iran invasion's impact on his own country is far from top-of-mind.
Trump was asked by Hannity about his weekslong effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran closed in response to the war's launch, causing a spike in global oil prices that has hit the US. Reopening the strait has become one of Trump's main demands as he pushes for a deal with Iran, even though it was open before the war began.
But Trump said on Thursday that other countries "need the strait more than we need it open." He cited his administration's aggressive expansion of oil drilling, which he has claimed would make the US more resilient to the oil shock, although it hasn't been enough to stop gas prices from soaring above $4.50/gallon on average.
"We don't need it at all," Trump said, to which Hannity responded incredulously, "We don't need it at all?"
"We don't need it at all," Trump reiterated. “I mean, you could make the case, you know, like why are we even, we’re doing it to help Israel, and to help Saudi Arabia, and to help Qatar and [the United Arab Emirates] and, you know, Kuwait and other countries, Bahrain—”
Hannity interjected: "It also helps China."
Speaking of his summit this week with Chinese leaders, including President Xi Jinping, Trump said: "Actually, I told him today, I said, 'You know, we're helping you, and we're helping you in another way,' because I don't think they want, I don't think China wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon either.'"
Trump's director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified in a written statement to Congress in March that Iran had not tried to rebuild its nuclear enrichment capability after earlier US and Israeli attacks last June, which undercut one of the administration's primary rationales for war.
Trump's former National Counterterrorism Center director, Joe Kent, said last week that the US intelligence community agreed in the days leading up to the war that "Iran wasn’t developing a nuclear weapon,” but said that these assessments were undermined by persuasion from "a foreign government—Israel," which "won the argument and forced us into this war."
Many of the US's Persian Gulf allies have publicly tried to distance themselves from the war, especially in the face of retaliation from Iran. But The Associated Press has reported that countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain have pushed Trump behind the scenes to continue escalating the war in an effort to weaken Iran militarily and force more permanent changes to the regime.
Some have noted the Trump family’s close personal ties to the Gulf regimes—from his family’s cryptocurrency venture which is buoyed by a $500 million investment from a powerful member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family; to his son in law Jared Kushner’s private equity firm, which has received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund; to his real estate empire which has lucrative Trump-branded properties popping up across the region.
Independent journalist Borzou Daragahi said that with his latest comments, "Trump again says the quiet part out loud—America entered the Iran war to support a genocidal ethno-state and brutal absolute autocracies, all of whom are his political and commercial financiers."
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Amid Trump-Xi Meeting, US Coalition Urges Congress to ‘Prioritize Peace’ and End ‘Confrontational Posture’ With China
“Americans are increasingly supportive of US-China cooperation, while tensions with China do not serve American interests,” said dozens of anti-war groups as President Trump met with Chinese President Xi.
May 14, 2026
As US President Donald Trump meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping, a coalition of anti-war groups is calling on Congress to pressure the administration to "prioritize peace, cooperation, and stability" at a time when the US-China relationship is increasingly hostile.
“Americans are increasingly supportive of US-China cooperation, while tensions with China do not serve American interests,” argued the coalition, which includes Just Foreign Policy, Win Without War, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Our Revolution, and dozens of other groups in a letter sent to members of Congress on Thursday.
They cited recent surveys showing that negative perceptions of China are consistently falling among Americans, including a Pew Research poll from January, which showed that just 28% of Americans viewed China as an "enemy" compared with 42% who saw it that way in 2024.
“At a time when so many domestic needs are going unmet, a confrontational posture toward China is costing untold billions of dollars in military build-up, trade and energy disruption, and securitization of technology—money that could and should be spent on the things Americans need at home," the coalition continued.
Trump's first visit to China in nearly a decade comes amid a global energy crisis caused by his war in Iran, a conflict where China has expressed a desire to act as a mediator.
While the coalition denounced Trump's war as "an unauthorized war of choice" that has led the world to a "deeply dangerous and uncertain place," it also said it presented an opportunity for the US and China to engage in diplomacy in hopes of putting the relationship "on a more stable footing."
Xi said that Taiwan remains the "most important issue in China-US relations” as the talks kicked off, warning that if mishandled, it could create a "very dangerous situation."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after a meeting on Thursday that the decadesold "One China Policy," which takes no explicit view on Taiwan's sovereignty, hasn't changed. Though he warned that it would be “a terrible mistake” for China to attempt to seize the island by force.
Friction between the US and China has only been heightened after Trump announced the sale of more than $11 billion worth of weapons to Taiwan in December, the largest ever arms sale to the island. At the time, China said the sale "gravely violates" the One China Policy.
The anti-war coalition warned that "current military and political trends in the United States, China, and Taiwan are moving us closer to a serious crisis or conflict over the island" and called on the US to "revitalize its One China Policy and press Beijing to reaffirm its focus on peaceful unification, with no timeline."
“Diplomacy with Beijing, rather than military posturing or arms racing across the Taiwan Strait,” they said, “is the only realistic path forward, especially since the American public has little interest in participating in a military conflict against China in defense of Taiwan.”
According to a survey by the Institute for Global Affairs in November, just 35% of Americans said they'd support the US sending troops to defend Taiwan if it were to be attacked by China. In a January poll commissioned by The New Republic, just 10% of Democratic voters said they wanted their party to support sending troops, and 30% wanted it to support sending weapons.
But Democratic leadership has pressured Trump to take the opposite approach and ramp up hostility toward Beijing in advance of this week's talks.
On Wednesday, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was joined by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Jim Himes (D-Ct.), and Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) to send a letter urging Trump to approve a delayed $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan ahead of his visit.
The Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee joined in support for the sale, saying that "Trump must reaffirm in his meeting with Xi that the US will continue to uphold our longstanding One-China policy while standing firmly with Taiwan’s democracy and security. And he must make that clear by notifying Congress of the $14 billion arms sales to Taiwan. Anything else would undermine American credibility."
Just Foreign Policy (JFP) countered that the request to send more weapons just before talks were set to begin was "deeply unserious" and an "absurdly ill-timed move that would sabotage diplomacy—or worse."
Jake Werner, the director of the East Asia program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft—another signatory to the anti-war letter—warned that while Democrats should confront Trump on the issue of China, they shouldn't goad him into an even more hawkish approach.
“If you want to attack Trump, that's great, but you should attack Trump on the basis of prudent, conflict-avoiding principles,” Werner said. “They should be criticizing him not for engaging in diplomacy, but for engaging in the wrong kind of diplomacy.”
In their letter to Congress, these and the other anti-war groups pushed for a similar diplomatic approach to other sources of tension with China, arguing that the US should take no position on the sovereignty of disputed territory in the South China Sea.
They also encouraged members of Congress to avoid creating "incentives" for other nations to adopt more confrontational stances toward China.
They singled out a first-ever test launch of an American Tomahawk missile in the Philippines last week, which had the capability to reach the Chinese mainland. Chinese military observers described it as the “worst provocation” in years by the US and suggested that Beijing should ramp up its air-defense and stealth-strike drone capabilities in response, according to the South China Morning Post.
The anti-war coalition said they "urge Congress to press the administration to avoid further escalatory signals and to instead pursue diplomacy to restore and expand non-proliferation agreements that can prevent a wasteful and dangerous arms race."
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We Need a Department of Peace, Not $1.5 Trillion for More War
Holding peace as an organizing principle? Developing policies that promote peaceful resolution of conflict? Can you imagine this at the core to the American government? With significant funding?
May 14, 2026
It’s hard to avoid noticing, and internally screaming over, the Trump administration’s proposed military budget upgrade to $1.5 trillion annually—as though the present trillion-dollar annual gift to the end of the world weren’t enough.
It’s not just the proposed taxpayer bleed. It’s the collective assumption that “self-defense” requires an ever-present readiness to kill lots of people—and beyond that the utter certainty that we have soulless enemies out there who want what we have, hate our freedoms, and will take what they can the moment we relax. This is just the way it is. No questions allowed.
And our enemies aren’t pussycats. One of them, for instance, is China. Indeed, as Megan Russell of CODEPINK writes:
US lawmakers have been using China as a military budget increaser and ultimate policy-generator for years. Competition with Beijing is invoked to justify military expansion, new regional alliances, AI weapons development, semiconductor restrictions, and rising nuclear expenditures. In Washington, framing a policy as necessary to "counter China" has become one of the quickest ways to secure bipartisan support. As a result, the "China threat" rhetoric proliferates while the military budget skyrockets.
“A quick way to secure bipartisan support”—that says it all. Nothing holds a country together like a good enemy. This is who we are; this is the identity we’re stuck with. We unify when we fight. Apparently that’s at our political core, which is why any cries for peace—which is oh, so complex—are ignored, belittled, and virtually always voted down. All of which is to our own detriment, not to mention the world’s detriment.
As Russell notes:
...currently, the US and China are building their own tech ecosystems, especially in the fields of artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and quantum computing. The US refers to this as a "strategic rivalry" with wider national security implications. This perspective only exists because China is considered a rival. China does not have to be considered a rival. China could just as easily be considered a development partner. And indeed it should, because cooperation on tech is the only potential avenue for ensuring the continued existence of the planet.
Uh, too bad, Planet Earth. Collective humanity refuses to think at that level. Technology serves only our belief in dominance. Consider President Donald Trump’s proposed “Golden Dome” nuclear defense system: thousands of satellites patrolling the planet, on the lookout for enemy nuclear missiles, a deeply flawed reincarnation of the Reagan-era Strategic Defense Initiative plan that went nowhere. The cost, though minimized by the Trump administration, could wind up, according to some estimates, amounting to well over $3 trillion.
And, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense:
Pursuing Golden Dome also poses serious strategic risks, including the potential to accelerate nuclear arms and space arms races and to undermine opportunities to secure verifiable arms control agreements that reduce the nuclear threat. The program has also raised troubling conflict-of-interest concerns involving individuals within the Trump administration and companies vying for Golden Dome contracts.
Wars. Sometimes you stop ’em, sometimes you start ’em, but they ain’t going away. The most powerful people on the planet are utterly committed to the limited nature of their thinking. That’s just how it goes. What about that do you not understand, Rep. Kucinich?
Remember US Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and his Department of Peace legislation, which he introduced in Congress every year from 2001 to 2011? And it was introduced again in 2013 by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). It, uh, never passed.
Here’s how it was defined in 2001, as HR2458:
Establishes a Department of Peace, which shall be headed by a Secretary of Peace appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate. Sets forth the mission of the Department, including to: (1) hold peace as an organizing principle; (2) endeavor to promote justice and democratic principles to expand human rights; and (3) develop policies that promote national and international conflict prevention, nonviolent intervention, mediation, peaceful resolution of conflict, and structured mediation of conflict.
Establishes in the Department the Intergovernmental Advisory Council on Peace, which shall provide assistance and make recommendations to the Secretary and the President concerning intergovernmental policies relating to peace and nonviolent conflict resolution.
Holding peace as an organizing principle? Developing policies that promote peaceful resolution of conflict? Can you imagine this at the core to the American government? With significant funding? As I read these words today, I feel compelled to help keep them alive. I want that level of sanity in my government—that level of commitment to something I believe in, with all my heart.
Instead:
Taken together, the Trump administration’s rhetoric and actions point to a clear conclusion about its recent request for a whopping $1.5 trillion in military spending: This is not a defense budget. It is a war budget, designed to enable a pattern of aggressive military action and escalating threats that are already imposing a devastating toll on civilians abroad, while the combination of spending cuts and rising costs imposed on Americans is deepening injustice at home.
This is Scott Paul, writing at The Hill. He goes on: “This budget is certainly not business as usual. It is a dramatic reordering of national priorities. Trump has made this shift explicit, arguing that the US cannot afford childcare, Medicaid or Medicare because, as he put it, ‘we’re fighting wars.’”
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