United States President Donald Trump is considering asking Arab countries to cover the cost of the US-Israel war on Iran, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt has said.“I think it’s something the president would be quite interested in calling them to do,” Leavitt told reporters at a news briefing on Monday.“I won’t get ahead of him on that, but certainly, it’s an idea that I know that he has and something that I think you’ll hear more from him on.”Such a mechanism would be similar to how US allies helped fund Washington’s intervention during the Gulf War in 1990.On Monday, Trump also indicated that he may be satisfied with bringing the war to a close even without the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting that “other partners” who rely more heavily on exports shipped through the narrow waterway, which Iran closed shortly after the war began at the end of February, should take on the burden of managing that crisis.In peacetime, about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies are shipped through the strait. This has forced the price of Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, as high as $116 per barrel this week, compared with a pre-war price of about $65 and has sparked major supply concerns across the globe. The US, however, is largely self-sufficient when it comes to these resources. For its part, Tehran has stated that the US should pay reparations to com …
