Countries including the UK, Japan, China and South Korea have said they are still considering their options after the US president, Donald Trump, urged them to send warships to the strait of Hormuz to secure the vital shipping route.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump called on the UK, China, France, Japan, South Korea and other countries to send ships to the waterway, the world’s busiest shipping route which is being violently blockaded by Iran.

In his post, Trump alleged that “many countries, especially those who are affected by Iran’s attempted closure of the Hormuz strait, will be sending war ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the strait open and safe”.

In a later post, Trump extended his callout to all “the countries of the world that receive oil through the Hormuz strait” to send military support.

The effective closure of the strait of Hormuz by Tehran, in retaliation for bombing by the US and Israel, has proved catastrophic for global energy and trade flows, causing the largest oil supply disruption in history and soaring global oil prices.

However, the international response to Trump’s callout for the ready dispatch of warships to the strait has so far proved vague and reluctant, with countries unwilling to commit to a military response that could prove treacherous for their navies.

Tehran has said any oil tanker heading for the US, Israel or its allies was a legitimate target in the war and would be “immediately destroyed”. Sixteen tankers have been attacked in the strait of Hormuz since the war started in late February and Iran has threatened to lay explosive mines in the critical waterway. So far, the US has not sent its own navy ships to escort tankers through the strait.

A statement by the UK Ministry of Defence said they were in discussions with allies over “a range of options to ensure the security of shipping in the region”.

Speaking on the BBC, the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said the UK had been in discussion with the US and other allies on how to keep the strait open and were considering sending mine-hunting drones. “Any options that can help to get the strait reopened are being looked at,” said Miliband.

A senior Japanese politician told the news channel NHK TV that Japan would not rule out sending warships to the region to secure the shipping lane but said the obstacles were very high.

“From a legal standpoint, the possibility cannot be ruled out, but given that the dispute is continuing, this is something we should judge cautiously. I think the hurdle is very high,” said Takayuki Kobayashi, the chair of the ruling Liberal Democratic party’s policy research council.

South Korea, heavily dependent on energy flows through the strait, said they had taken note of Trump’s comments but would communicate closely with the US and review the situation before making any decisions on how to help secure the shipping route.

“Our government is closely monitoring developments related to the Middle East situation,” said South Korea’s foreign ministry in a statement, adding that they were “exploring various measures from multiple angles to protect our citizens and secure the safety of energy transport routes”.

France had already made its position clear prior to Trump’s comments. Speaking on Thursday, the French defence minister, Catherine Vautrin, said France would not be sending warships to the strait of Hormuz while the conflict continued to escalate.

“I’m very clear and firm on this topic, at this point there is no question of sending any vessels to the strait of Hormuz,” said Vautrin. She said that France maintained a “purely defensive position” and there were no current plans to move the French navy’s flagship vessel, the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, out of the eastern Mediterranean.

Speaking in Cyprus earlier in the week, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, had said that France and its allies were preparing a “purely defensive” mission to escort vessels through the strait of Hormuz, but only once the “most intense phase” of the US-Israeli war on Iran ends. Macron described it as a “purely escort mission” with involvement by both European and non-European countries.

According to the Financial Times, EU foreign affairs ministers are also considering widening the scope of the EU’s Aspides naval mission, which currently provides protection to ships in Yemen from attacks by Houthi rebels, to extend to the strait of Hormuz. The Aspides naval mission currently consists of three ships from France, Italy and Greece.

China’s response made no mention of military intervention. As an ally of Iran that is also highly dependent on crude oil imports from the strait, China is reportedly in talks with the Iranian regime about allowing oil tankers to pass through from the Gulf, but no definitive outcome has been agreed.

In a statement given to CNN by the Chinese embassy in Washington over the weekend, they said China would work to strengthen “communication with relevant parties” in the Middle East and “play a constructive role for deescalation and restoration of peace”.

Britain is in a standoff with Brussels over a demand to cut university tuition fees for European students, in a row that threatens to scupper Keir Starmer’s planned EU reset.

EU officials say European students should pay “home” fees of about £9,500 a year as part of the negotiations over a youth mobility scheme, rather than the higher international rate, which can rise above £60,000.

However, British negotiators say they have been blindsided by the demand, which they say was not mentioned in the framework agreement signed last year and would cost British universities an estimated £140m a year.

Sources say the disagreement has brought talks to a near standstill with just three months left before a summit in Brussels in late June or early July.

The prime minister is planning to use that summit to announce a series of agreements on trade and travel designed to bolster his argument that closer ties with the EU are needed to boost the UK’s economic growth.

One said: “It is true that talks have stalled and that this is now the main issue on which both sides cannot agree.”

A British government spokesperson said: “Any final [youth mobility] scheme must be time-limited, capped and will be based on our existing youth mobility schemes, which do not include access to home tuition fee status.”

One British source described the idea of a reduction in tuition fees as a “non-starter”.

The European Commission would not comment on negotiations, though a spokesperson said: “The United Kingdom and the EU have underlined and reaffirmed their commitment to implementing the outcomes of the May 2025 summit in a timely manner. We will work together on our continued discussions in areas of shared interest.”

Starmer kicked off talks on a range of subjects last year as part of what ministers said was a “historic” agreement to improve the terms of the Brexit deal 10 years after the UK first voted to leave the EU.

The prime minister has put closer EU relations at the heart of his economic plan, something the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will further emphasise in a lecture on Tuesday spelling out the government’s growth strategy.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister, who is in charge of the negotiations, is due in Brussels on Monday to underline the government’s position in front of a joint meeting of members from the British and European parliaments.

But in the negotiating room, agreement is proving hard to come by, with officials toiling over three potential deals: one covering trade in food and agricultural products; one covering carbon emissions; and one expanding visa freedoms for young people.

Sources briefed on the talks say the agricultural trade deal is close to completion after European officials accepted that Britain could keep its higher animal welfare standards as part of any agreement.

Discussions on the carbon emissions deal, which would link the carbon emission trading schemes in the UK and EU and avoid Britain having to pay a cross-border carbon tax, are also thought to be well advanced. However, the youth mobility scheme, which ministers have rebadged as a youth experience scheme to dispel fears about higher levels of migration, is causing a major stumbling block.

EU leaders have instructed Brussels officials to negotiate over reducing the fees for all European students in return for accepting British demands of a two-year time limit on the scheme and a limit on numbers of fewer than 100,000 a year. The instruction was handed over as part of the formal negotiating mandate given earlier this year by the European Council to the European Commission, which carries out the talks.

Sources in Brussels say that since Brexit, the proportion of European students in the UK has fallen from 27% to 5%, and they argue that the European middle-class is being priced out of a British university education.

But UK officials say that while a cap and a time limit were explicitly referenced in last year’s agreement, a reduction in fees was not. They say that if the government accepted Brussels’ demand it would require a “really big” concession in return beyond the requirements the government had already set out.

UK officials are keen to make the scheme more flexible than the EU is proposing, for example by allowing participants to change between work, study or simply travelling as they wish.

Mark Corver, an analyst of university funding and director at Campus Numerics, said setting fees for EU students at the same level as British students’ would cost the sector £140m in the first year, and £400m across the three-year period of a typical course.

Jamie Arrowsmith, the director of Universities UK International, said: “We fully support the government’s position on home fee status. This would carry a very significant cost and risks undermining the financial sustainability of universities, which would not be in the best interests of the UK or the EU, or prospective students.”

Jewish and Arab American leaders across Detroit and the US strongly condemned the 12 March terrorist attack on a Michigan synagogue and largely aimed to lower tensions against the backdrop of the US and Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Iran.

But in Michigan, where large populations of Arab Americans and Jews live near one another, the complexities of the situation can be difficult to grapple with – and few people had easy or quick answers on how to move forward.

In some cases, emotions continue to run high: a pro-Israel state representative on Friday afternoon assailed on social media a Muslim politician who had expressed sadness over the incident.

The Lebanese American suspect, Ayman Ghazali, a 41-year-old shawarma restaurant employee, appears to have carried out the attack in retribution for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killing of four of his relatives, including two small children, in an airstrike on their home during its ongoing invasion of Lebanon.

Ghazali reportedly drove his truck through the doors of the Temple Israel synagogue and into a hallway, where he allegedly shot himself fatally after he was confronted by security. Explosives were found inside the truck, which caught fire. Community leaders expressed relief that there was only a minor injury beyond Ghazali’s own death.

Temple Israel is in West Bloomfield Township, a wealthy community a few miles north of Dearborn, the center of the region’s Lebanese American population.

Congregation T’chiyah Rabbi Alana Alpert said that everyone “deserves to walk safely down the streets of our neighborhoods and through the doors of our holy spaces”.

“Anytime someone blames or conflates all Jewish people – including kids at their school – with the state or government of Israel, that is dangerous and antisemitic, and it leads directly to violence against us,” she said. “And that includes when Trump or [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu do it.”

The Jewish Federation of Detroit did not respond to a request for comment, but in a media statement the group said: “We remain steadfast in our commitment to vigilance and security, even as we continue to live proud, vibrant Jewish lives – at our temples and synagogues, in our schools, and throughout our Jewish organizations.”

But some voices have linked the attack on the synagogue to the conflict in the Middle East and Israel’s actions.

Jewish Voice for Peace Detroit’s Lex Eisenberg said they are “broken-hearted in the wake of a horrible attack”.

“It is increasingly clear that the Israeli government’s atrocities make all people, including Jews, less safe,” they added in an email. “The Israeli government carries out wars and genocide against families and children, and then [it] falsely claims these war crimes are done in the name of Jews. This leads to still more anti-semitism.”

Much of the Lebanese American diaspora in south-east Michigan has its roots in southern Lebanon, where the IDF has forcibly displaced more than 800,000 people in southern Lebanon in recent weeks as it seeks to eliminate Hezbollah. Hezbollah operates outside the Lebanese government in the region and carries out attacks on Israel.

Among other support for the Israeli military, the Temple Israel synagogue has hosted IDF soldiers, hosted an IDF recruiter (though he wasn’t recruiting at the synagogue), has held prayers for the IDF and has partnered with the Friends of the IDF, which fundraises to support the military.

Rabbis for Peace founder Alissa Wise said such an attack on Jews stemming from Middle East violence was her “worst fear”.

“On one hand, you want to say it’s a synagogue so it’s an antisemitic attack, but at the same time you understand that Israel deliberately conflates Jewishness with support for Israel’s actions, and you also have a synagogue that supports that project,” Wise said.

Wise added: “How do we hold this complexity in a world like this and in a time like this?”

The response in Dearborn

In Dearborn and adjacent Dearborn Heights, many are shocked that a well-known community member from a popular sandwich shop, Hamido, carried out the attack. The area has been subjected to regular Islamophobic attacks and vitriol from rightwing groups in recent decades. It knows the pain of being targeted; Arab American mayors, imams and other leaders from across the region expressed support for Jewish residents.

“Jewish and Arab communities have always co-existed here in [south-east] Michigan, and the emphatic statements of solidarity I’m seeing from Arab American leaders of all faiths do not surprise me, given greater Detroit’s strong interfaith tradition,” Bilal Baydoun, a former city of Dearborn spokesperson, said.

A Dearborn community leader who declined to use their name said the attacks were “terrible” but added “so are the attacks that are killing our families and friends in Lebanon.

“Where is the sympathy and outrage over that?”

It is that layer that makes the situation so difficult for many, though they and other community leaders stressed that there is little animosity among Arab American and Jewish residents in Michigan; nor are Israel’s actions justification for violence here.

“The unjustified Israeli attack on civilians in Iran and Lebanon gives no blank check to anyone attacking synagogues, civilians and peaceful communities,” Dearborn imam Hassan Qazwini told the Detroit Free Press on Friday.

One notable exception to the calls for civility in the terrorist attack’s wake was pro-Israel Michigan state representative Noah Arbit’s taking rhetorical aim at Abdul El-Sayed, a former Detroit health official who is running for the US Senate. El-Sayed has long been critical of Israel’s attacks in Gaza – which have been roundly condemned internationally – and called for a halt to all foreign military aid, including to Israel.

El-Sayed wrote on X that he was “horrified and heartbroken” in the hours after the Temple Israel attack. Later, in a video, El-Sayed said Ghazali’s actions, Israeli strikes on Lebanon and the Iran war are part of a cycle of violence that must come to an end.

He added that conflating the Temple Israel congregation with the Israeli government amounts to antisemitism.

“One can have righteous anger with the state of Israel while expressing solidarity with the Jewish people, including Jewish people in Israel,” El-Sayed said in the video.

Arbit took to X to excoriate El-Sayed on Friday.

“Amazed by the crocodile tears from someone who’s done more than most to stoke & inflame hatred against Jews,” Arbit wrote. Invoking an acronym for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he added: “It’s a very small logical leap from ‘AIPAC controls the US government,’ ‘Israel is committing genocide,’ ‘Zionists kill Arab babies’ to ‘kill Jews in West Bloomfield.’”

El-Sayed did not respond to the comment.

However, more broadly, many hope that the tragedy can be an impetus for change. Wise said many pro-Israel, mainstream synagogues have “strong red lines” against speaking with antiwar or pro-Palestinian Jewish groups such as Rabbis for Peace. Wise said she is hopeful the tragedy can bring groups together.

“Sometimes fear and grief and pain can open our hearts,” Wise said. “And I hope that can be the case if it will force people who have been unwilling to sit at the same table to do so.”