Thirty-five flags on a video call. Zero stars and stripes.
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper chaired a virtual summit on Thursday with representatives from 35 countries to discuss how to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Washington was not invited.
It came four days before President Donald Trump's self-imposed April 6 deadline for Iran to reopen the strait, a deadline already extended twice and backed by the threat of strikes on Iran's oil infrastructure, including Kharg Island.
Trump's position on allied nations struggling with the blockade? He put it on Truth Social on Monday: "All of those countries that can't get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you: Number 1, buy from the U.S., we have plenty, and Number 2, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT."
Who showed up
The coalition spans four continents. France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia, and the UAE anchored the group. Nordic countries Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland joined alongside Baltic states Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Eastern Europe sent Czechia, Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Moldova. From the Gulf, Bahrain attended. So did Nigeria, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, Chile, the Marshall Islands, Portugal, Slovenia, and New Zealand.
Roughly a third of the world's economies sat in one virtual room, minus the largest one.
What Starmer said
Prime Minister Keir Starmer set the tone at a press conference on Wednesday. "This is not our war. We will not be drawn into the conflict," he said. "Whatever the noise, I will work in the British national interest."
He acknowledged the scale of the challenge. "I have to be honest with everyone, it will not be easy."
Cooper's stated agenda: to "assess all viable diplomatic and political measures we can take to restore freedom of navigation, guarantee the safety of trapped ships and seafarers, and resume the movement of vital commodities." A follow-up military planning session will focus on how to "marshal our capabilities and make the strait accessible and safe after the fighting has stopped."
That phrasing matters. London is not planning to force the strait open during active hostilities. It is building a coalition for the day after.
Words vs. warships
Diplomatic weight sits awkwardly beside military reality. Nearly 2,000 ships remain stranded outside the strait, according to Al Jazeera. Traffic through Hormuz has collapsed by 95% since Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps took control of the corridor in early March. Just 142 vessels transited between March 1 and 25, compared with 2,652 in the same period last year.
Iran has turned that control into cash. The IRGC charges up to $2 million per transit, with parliament voting to make the fees permanent. Ships tied to China, Russia, India, and a handful of other nations get through. Everyone else waits.
All 35 summit nations carry political clout, but none has an obvious military mechanism to challenge that arrangement while the US-Iran war continues. Britain announced additional troop deployments to the region alongside the summit, yet the Royal Navy lacks the firepower to escort commercial shipping through an active war zone without American support.
Prices climbed before the meeting started
Brent crude traded at $107.97 per barrel on Thursday, up 6.81% on the session. WTI climbed to $106.56, up 6.44%. Both moves reflected broader war-risk pricing rather than any immediate summit outcome.
Thursday's meeting is unlikely to move prices in either direction. Markets are watching the April 6 deadline, not a diplomatic conference call. If Trump's ultimatum passes without progress and Kharg Island comes under fire, Brent could retest last week's $116 highs. If talks gain traction, the $14 to $18 per barrel risk premium that Goldman Sachs estimates sits in the current price could drain out fast.
What comes next
Starmer's coalition marks a shift in how the crisis is being managed, or at least discussed. For the first month of the war, diplomacy ran through Washington and, briefly, through Pakistan's 15-point peace plan. Both tracks stalled. Iran called the peace plan "excessive and unreasonable." Trump moved from negotiation to threats.
Now a parallel track exists. It carries no American firepower and limited enforcement power, but it has broad international backing and a clear mandate: figure out how to reopen the strait once the shooting stops.
Whether that matters depends entirely on what happens by Sunday.