Donald Trump is still clamoring against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a new report from Rolling Stone says.
He isn’t exactly known for comprehensive, point-by-point policy agendas, and that’s no different here, but his direction — in public and private — is clear. “Trump, the sources say, has continued to express an openness to pulling the U.S. out of NATO altogether,” Rolling Stone said, though they also cited interest from Trump in possibilities of essentially lowering NATO’s profile — which could have the effect of dismantling its effectiveness. A key component of the alliance is the agreement among members to defend another if that nation is attacked. If Trump, who continues running for president, tries to limit how the U.S. would actually apply that principle, it would undercut the entire ambition.
“It would be a tremendously stupid endeavor, especially at a time when war in Europe rages, and much of Europe is looking to the United States to deter further conflict,” Dr. Aaron Stein of the Foreign Policy Research Institute told Rolling Stone. “Trading away allies based on ignorance, and Trump is ignorant about this issue, is just silly for broader U.S. national security.”
Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute spoke similarly on X (formerly Twitter). “As this, and the damning tapes of Trump/Pratt conversation show, Donald Trump is the biggest internal threat to America’s national security we have had since the Civil War,” Ornstein said.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that while in office he rebuffed to leadership elsewhere in the world the idea of the U.S. fulfilling its collective defense obligations under NATO if ostensible bills remained unpaid by other countries in NATO. The former president and allies of his have repeatedly tried to characterize other countries in the alliance as getting a free ride from U.S. support, but for starters, previously established targets for individual countries’ spending cover their individual spending on defense, not contributions to a NATO budget. Still, Trump has told some version of that claim about his time in office at a rally in Georgia and on Fox, threatening — if he makes it back to office — to undercut the global security position of the United States.
