Trump is furious, NATO is enduring: Why the alliance is harder to kill than it looks
As US President Donald Trump may want it and the diplomatic cycle encourages it, the divorce between the United States and NATO will be very difficult to achieve because neither side sees it in their interest – for now.
Witness the latest reports this week ahead of the regularly scheduled meeting between Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
The meeting came a week after the US president told Reuters he was “determined to withdraw” from NATO following the alliance’s refusal to join the American-Israeli campaign against Iran.
Speculation shot into the stratosphere on Wednesday when White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt, before the meeting, quoted the president as saying that NATO had “been tried and failed.”
He said NATO countries have “turned their backs on the American people,” who fund their countries’ defense, and that Trump will have a “frank and frank conversation” with Rutte.
Everyone also looked at whether it would have an impact, as they did last week when it was expected that Trump’s Iran speech would tear the guts out of the Western military alliance.
He did not mention allies in that address, except to suggest they help police the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway his war has made unsafe.
And instead of a powerful roar on Wednesday, Trump posted on his Truth Social account that “NATO IS NOT WHERE WE NEED THEM, AND THEY WILL NOT BE THERE WHEN WE NEED US AGAIN.”
On Thursday, Rutte said in his speech that the alliance remains an important partner of the US
The US and Iran have reached a fragile ceasefire agreement just hours after President Donald Trump threatened to destroy Iran’s ‘entire civilization’. Andrew Chang explains what makes the deal so difficult, dispels confusion about its terms and obstacles that remain as US-Israel talks with Iran continue. Photos provided by The Canadian Press, Reuters, Adobe Stock and Getty Images
An official in the Trump administration, speaking after the Wall Street Journal, said that Trump may want to punish allies who do not support the US-Israeli war.
There is a difference between taking out your anger on certain countries and throwing the entire alliance in the trash can, says former Canadian ambassador to NATO, Kerry Buck.
“It’s possible that he intends to punish those allies who feel he hasn’t done enough, if that’s the case, that’s Trump’s lesson and it doesn’t hurt NATO,” Buck said.
“He is linking the problem with NATO repeatedly in his words, so he is already doing damage to the organization. But it does not mean that the US is taking steps within NATO to reduce the organization.”
Buck’s view: If the US was serious about leaving NATO or punishing the organization as a whole, it could do one of three things.
It can withdraw stealthily – stay on paper, but not fill key positions within the coalition – or drag its feet in making important appointments and payments.
The second option would be to stay out of trouble – or a limited early withdrawal of troops from key areas, such as in eastern Poland where the US is leading a NATO blockade of around 10,000 troops.
A third so-called “nuclear” option would be to issue a 180-day notice of full withdrawal from the Washington Treaty. The legal limit, set by the US Congress in 2024, requires a two-thirds majority of the Senate to support a divorce.
And that’s where the rhetoric comes back to Earth.
“There are still important members in this country [Republican] It’s a group that understands the U.S. benefit of NATO,” Buck said. “So I’m not going to even begin to guess where politics, American politics, domestic politics, could take this.”
US President Donald Trump has said he is considering withdrawing the United States from NATO. But because of the 2023 law, he can’t do that unless Congress agrees to go along with it.
And, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey, NATO membership remains popular with Americans. A survey showed that last year, 66 percent of US respondents believed that the United States benefited from membership in the alliance while 32% thought that it did not.
Buck, however, pointed out that support for NATO among Republicans has fallen below 50 percent for the first time.
An exit could also rob the US of its European bases and cost its European customers its industrial complex.
The real damage, says Buck, is already being done by an emboldened Russia, which this week tested NATO by placing submarines over transatlantic cables in waters off the United Kingdom.
“If [Russian President Vladimir] “Putin thinks that NATO is weak, the deterrence power of the collective defense guarantee is lost,” said Buck.
Like any relationship, it takes two to make it and two to break it. The way it is planned by some analysts is that the withdrawal of America from NATO would be a bad event and the end of the alliance.
But what about the new side of that narrative: if Europe is fed up and ready for a divorce?
Last year, the International Institute for Security Studies (IISS) mapped out what NATO would look like outside the United States.
The study found that, on a financial basis, Europe is not yet ready to leave the house built by Washington. It would cost an estimated $1 trillion US on top of Europe’s additional defense budget to build and replace American forces.
“Not only will the European allies need to close large US military bases and personnel – these are estimated to be 128,000 troops – but also face shortages of space and equipment for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment,” the study said.
“They will also need to replace the significant US contribution to NATO’s command and control systems and fill many of the military positions in NATO organizations currently occupied by US personnel.”
Ivo Daalder, the former US ambassador to NATO, has also thought about how the alliance can do it alone.
“The Europeanization of NATO will require three things that are currently lacking: money, time and US cooperation,” Daalder wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine last year.
“Besides the United States, the other 31 NATO members include a population of more than 600 million people and a pool of economic resources more than 10 times that of Russia. These countries, despite having to rely on the United States for so long, can fully ensure their own security in the future. The first time is now.”
Canada’s former military commander, retired General Tom Lawson, said he wonders how much patience other NATO members have left – and that the Iran crisis has created an irreconcilable rift.
Retired general Tom Lawson, former chief of defense staff in Canada’s armed forces, says ‘we see a complete misunderstanding between what the Americans said was agreed upon and what was negotiated’ in the Iran ceasefire because ‘the Americans see this as their way out.’ Lawson says US President Donald Trump’s threat to destroy Iran’s civilization was empty: ‘He knew he had an army that wouldn’t follow illegal orders, which would have been it.’
“I think it’s becoming increasingly recognized that this partner is unfaithful,” Lawson told the CBC. Power and Politics on Wednesday.
“It is a president who has become lawless and belligerent to many, supported by a sycophantic administration, with a Congress that seems uninterested in strengthening him and a population that has become less and less kind – generous around the world.”
There is a mechanism within the Washington Treaty, Article 13, that allows members to withdraw with one year’s notice. It’s called discarding and it’s never been used before.
