Trump suggests in new interviews he is ‘absolutely’ considering withdrawing US from ‘paper tiger’ NATO
By Christian Edwards
(CNN) — President Donald Trump suggested in two new interviews that he’s considering withdrawing the US from NATO after repeatedly criticizing a lack of support from members for the Iran war.
Asked by the right-leaning British publication The Telegraph in an interview published Wednesday if he would reconsider the US’ membership of NATO after the war, Trump said: “Oh yes, I would say (it’s) beyond reconsideration. I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin knows that too, by the way.”
The president doubled down in an interview with Reuters, saying he is “absolutely” considering trying to withdraw the US from NATO and previewed that he will be criticizing the military alliance during his primetime address to the nation Wednesday night.
“They haven’t been friends when we needed them,” Trump told Reuters. “We’ve never asked them for much … it’s a one-way street.”
Members of NATO have been reluctant to deploy military assets to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil shipping lane that Iran effectively closed in response to the US and Israel attacks.
Trump’s comments are the latest in a series of rebukes he has issued to NATO members over not “being there” for the US. On Tuesday, he told countries struggling to source jet fuel due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to “build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT.”
“You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement to CNN that “President Trump has made his disappointment with NATO and other allies clear, and as the President has emphasized, ‘the United States will remember.’”
Can Trump withdraw from NATO?
Whether Trump could withdraw the United States from the military alliance without congressional approval may depend on a court’s analysis, according to a Congressional Research Service report.
Despite Trump’s claims that he can withdraw the United States from the alliance, a law passed by Congress in 2023 states the move would require the advice and consent of the Senate or an act of Congress. Then-Sen. Marco Rubio, now the US secretary of state, was a co-sponsor of that law along with Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia.
In an interview with ABC’s “This Week” last month, Sen. Thom Tillis, the top Republican on the bipartisan Senate NATO Observer Group, said that it is “factually not true” that Trump can pull out of NATO without Congress.
“The president of the United States cannot withdraw from NATO. Now, having said that, the president can poison the well, the president can make it functionally defunct if he wants to,” he said.
A separate 2020 legal opinion from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, however, states that the president has exclusive authority over treaties.
Trump has often criticized NATO
Trump’s position has been puzzling to members of NATO, which is an alliance based on the principle of collective defense. Article 5, which states that an attack on one is an attack on all, has only been invoked once in the alliance’s history, following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. More than 1,100 non-US troops were killed after allies joined the US’ ensuing war in Afghanistan.
Despite those allied efforts, Trump has long questioned whether NATO allies would “be there” if the US “ever needed them,” baselessly claiming in January that NATO troops “stayed a little back” from the frontlines in Afghanistan. The president has continued to voice skepticism about the alliance since the US and Israel launched the war against Iran on February 28.
“Beyond not being there, it was actually hard to believe. And I didn’t do a big sale. I just said, ‘Hey,’ you know, I didn’t insist too much. I just think it should be automatic,” Trump told The Telegraph.
“We’ve been there automatically, including Ukraine,” he said. “Ukraine wasn’t our problem. It was a test, and we were there for them, and we would always have been there for them. They weren’t there for us.”
Although the US provides some military intelligence to Ukraine and allows Europe to purchase American weapons on Kyiv’s behalf, the US government has not authorized a new package of military or financial support to Ukraine since Joe Biden’s presidency.
In his recent broadsides against NATO, Trump has singled out British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Starmer initially refused the president’s request to use British military bases in offensive operations against Iran, which Britain had judged to be illegal. Starmer did, however, join the defense against Iran’s retaliation after British military assets in the Middle East came under attack.
In the Telegraph interview, Trump mocked Britain’s fleet of warships, saying: “You don’t even have a navy. You’re too old and had aircraft carriers that didn’t work.”
“I’m not going to tell him what to do. He can do whatever he wants. It doesn’t matter. All Starmer wants is costly windmills that are driving your energy prices through the roof,” Trump added, referring to clean energy projects.
Asked about Trump’s latest comments, Starmer stressed that NATO remains “the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen.” He reiterated that Britain will not “get dragged into” the war with Iran.
This story has been updated with additional information.
The-CNN-Wire
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CNN’s Kaanita Iyer, Catherine Nicholls, Lauren Chadwick and Aileen Graef contributed to this report.
