Romania has granted the United States access to its military bases and infrastructure for defensive operations tied to the standoff with Iran and the effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the country's foreign minister told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview at the United Nations.
Romanian Foreign Minister Oana-Silvia Ţoiu said the decision was approved through Parliament and framed it as a direct answer to the Trump administration's call for allied burden-sharing in the Middle East. Her remarks came just hours after Bucharest took the extraordinary step of requesting an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting, the first such request in Romania's roughly 70-year history at the body, following a Russian drone strike that slammed into a residential building in the city of Galați on May 29.
Two crises, one small NATO ally stepping up on both. That is the picture Ţoiu painted, and it is exactly the kind of allied response President Trump has demanded for years.
Ţoiu told Fox News Digital that Romania's Parliament approved the proposal put forward jointly by the president, the ministry of foreign affairs, the ministry for defense, and the prime minister. The authorization covers defensive activities, including air refueling for U.S. forces operating in the region.
"Romania has approved through Parliament the proposal of the President, the ministry of foreign affairs and the ministry for defense and the prime minister, the use of our military bases and infrastructure for defensive activities, for activities such as air-fuelling, for example, because we are aware of the fact that it is needed that we trust each other."
She was careful to draw a line between supporting allied defense and joining a shooting war.
"We're not part of the war, nor do we intend to become part of war, but we are part of an effort to ensure common defense, and we are a part of a diplomatic effort to ensure the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz."
The U.S. military has been enforcing a naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, even during a ceasefire, and the broader diplomatic push to reopen the waterway has become a central piece of the administration's pressure campaign against Tehran. Romania's willingness to provide staging support adds a European dimension to that effort, a dimension Trump has long argued was missing.
The Trump administration has convened high-level meetings on Iran as negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program reach a critical phase, making allied military cooperation all the more relevant.
Ţoiu's interview also highlighted Romania's trajectory on defense budgets, a sore point between Washington and many European capitals for years. She noted that Romania raised its defense spending to 2% of GDP during Trump's previous term and plans to allocate an average of 3.4% of GDP next year through military procurement and strategic infrastructure investments.
That puts Bucharest well ahead of most European allies. NATO leaders pledged at a June 25, 2025 summit in The Hague to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, a target Trump pushed hard to secure.
"We do agree with President Trump on the need to increase budgets."
Romania's willingness to spend, and to open its bases, stands in sharp contrast to the foot-dragging that has characterized much of Western Europe's response to American requests for greater burden-sharing. When Trump presses allies to do more, Romania appears to be one of the few that actually does it.
The other half of Ţoiu's visit to the U.N. carried a different kind of urgency. On May 29, a drone carrying explosives violated Romanian airspace for approximately four minutes before crashing into the 10th floor of a residential building in Galați, near the Ukrainian border along the Danube River. A mother and child were injured.
Ţoiu said Romanian military analysis confirmed the drone was Russian-made, by design, equipment type, and chemical analysis of its components. She said the drone was believed to be part of a larger Russian attack targeting Ukrainian civilian infrastructure near the Danube.
Romania, a NATO member on the alliance's eastern flank bordering Ukraine, requested an emergency Security Council session. France supported the request. The briefing on June 1 marked a historic first for Bucharest at the U.N.
Trump's broader push for allied accountability extends well beyond military spending. His administration has also moved aggressively on domestic policy fronts, including a recent effort to tighten asylum processing rules, part of a pattern of demanding that institutions, foreign and domestic, meet their obligations rather than coast on promises.
Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya rejected Romania's accusations at the Security Council session, calling them "unfounded and biased." He argued that if a Geran-2 drone had directly struck the building, the damage would have been far more severe. He pointed to Romanian media footage showing fire damage rather than complete destruction.
Nebenzya called for what he described as a "thorough, objective, and depoliticized investigation" involving Russia. He also suggested the incident could have been a Ukrainian provocation intended to drag NATO deeper into the war.
Ţoiu was unsparing in response.
"We wanted to call on the international community to make sure we collectively state that this is a blatant violation of international law. And irrespective of whether that was the intention or not, the responsibility is very clear. And these reckless escalations need to stop."
She also raised a structural question about the Security Council itself, one that resonates far beyond this single incident.
"We do now have a question that's not just a question on Romania's side, but the question of the international community of how can a member of the Security Council contribute to its mission there, which is peace and security, while also being an aggressor state."
She added pointedly that Russia's veto power is not currently being "used towards peace and security." It is a fair observation. A permanent member of the body charged with maintaining global order launched a drone that crashed into a NATO ally's apartment building, injured civilians, and then showed up to the emergency session to call the evidence biased.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz met with Ţoiu at U.N. headquarters in New York following the emergency session. Waltz wrote on X that he had met with the Romanian foreign minister after what he called "the reckless Russian drone strike on a Romanian apartment building."
"The violence must end before more innocent people suffer."
More than 50 countries joined the United States in backing Romania through a joint statement condemning the strike. Ţoiu acknowledged the breadth of support directly.
"The United States has joined our common statement alongside more than 50 countries in making a clear public message on the attack. We are working with the United States not just through our partnership in NATO, but also strategic partners."
The coalition response sends a clear signal, but the open question remains: what consequences, if any, will Russia face? Moscow holds a veto on the very body tasked with holding it accountable. That structural problem is not new, but a drone lodged in the side of a Romanian apartment building makes it harder to ignore.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to exercise political influence across multiple fronts at home, including shaping key GOP primary races ahead of upcoming elections, a reminder that the same president pressing allies abroad is also reshaping the domestic political landscape.
Ţoiu struck a diplomatic tone when discussing the broader U.S.-European relationship, but her message carried an implicit acknowledgment that Trump's pressure has changed the conversation.
"I'm pretty sure that both on the U.S. side and the European side, we do understand that we need to enhance our dialog in order to prevent moments when we create tension in the transatlantic partnership."
She also tied the Strait of Hormuz effort to concrete economic goals, noting that reopening the waterway would help lower energy prices and unblock fertilizer shipments, outcomes that matter to ordinary people on both sides of the Atlantic.
"I think we share clear objectives here in Europe, between the U.S. and countries around the world, such as lowering energy prices, such as allowing for fertilizers not to be blocked anymore there."
Several key questions remain unanswered. Which specific Romanian bases will host U.S. operations? What was the precise U.S. request that triggered Bucharest's parliamentary vote? And what formal investigation findings, if any, will emerge about the Galați drone strike? Romania says it has the military and chemical analysis. Russia says the evidence is biased. The Security Council, hamstrung by Moscow's veto, is unlikely to resolve the matter.
The administration has not shied away from confrontation on other fronts either. Trump recently pushed back against critics challenging his domestic agenda, showing the same willingness to hold ground that defines his approach to foreign policy.
Romania is not a large country. It is not a wealthy one by Western European standards. But it raised its defense spending when asked, opened its bases when needed, and showed up at the Security Council when a Russian drone hit its soil. It did all of this while most of Western Europe still debates whether to meet spending targets set years ago.
For years, Trump has argued that too many allies treat the transatlantic partnership as a one-way street, collecting security guarantees from Washington while skimping on their own commitments. Romania's actions suggest at least one European capital got the message.
When the president asks allies to step up and one of the smallest actually does, the silence from the bigger ones gets harder to explain.