Trump flaunts his threat to NATO and the US

By Timothy L O'Brien

How and where Donald Trump will degrade US foreign policy and threaten national security if he regains the White House remains an educated guessing game — apart from the clear danger he poses to stability and democracy in Europe.

Speaking at a campaign rally in South Carolina on Saturday, Trump recalled a possibly apocryphal conversation he claimed he had with “the president of a big country” in Europe. They were chatting, he said, about the failure of most European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to pay their fair share of the alliance’s defense funding.

“Well, sir, if we don’t pay, and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?” the European leader supposedly asked.

“I said; ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’”

“He said: ‘Yes. Let’s say that happened.’”

“No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.”

Trump, who has a long history of not paying his own bills, has been at this game for some time. When he was campaigning for the presidency in 2016, he also threatened to pull military support for NATO allies shirking on defense spending. (NATO members are supposed to contribute 2 per cent of their respective gross domestic products to defense. Most European countries — including Germany, France and Spain — don’t meet that goal.)

Trump has also declined in the past to guarantee US support for Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which commits every NATO member to support another that is under attack. It’s worth remembering that the only time Article 5 has been invoked was after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US. NATO vowed to help defend America, a bit of history Trump has forgotten or chooses to overlook. The US also enjoys extraordinary economic and diplomatic advantages from being the world’s military hegemon.

Still, the US military and its support for NATO loom large over Europe. America has the biggest bankroll in the alliance and the lion’s share of its firepower. The possibility that Trump would decline to defend a European country attacked by Russia — and might even pull the US out of NATO entirely — is the kind of seismic reality that should focus voters’ minds.

NATO, a military and security alliance of 29 European countries, the US and Canada, was created after World War II as a counterweight to the Soviet Union’s military aggression. It plays the same role now as a bulwark against Vladimir Putin’s Russia — the one that is waging a relentless and brutal war in Ukraine.

To be sure, Trump would face significant roadblocks to withdrawing from NATO. Congress passed a bipartisan bill in December that prevents presidents from leaving NATO without the Senate’s input and a two-thirds majority of senators supporting such a move. An act of Congress would also permit Trump to withdraw.

This is a slender reed for Europe to lean on. Trump has had little regard for the letter of the law (as his multiple civil cases and criminal prosecutions demonstrate), and he’s unlikely to worry that a bit of legislation will prevent him from handling NATO any way he chooses. Besides, Congress could be firmly in Republican hands after the November elections, and the MAGA wing of the GOP has already sabotaged efforts to provide military funding for Ukraine.

It makes no strategic sense — from a national security, geopolitical or humanitarian standpoint — to undermine Ukraine and its military. It only helps Russia and makes Europe more vulnerable. Yet that’s what Republicans are allowing to happen, and it signals what the party’s stance on NATO would be should Trump become president again.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is one of the starkest national security differences between the 2016 election and the 2024 election. China’s threat to Taiwan and broader stability in the Asia-Pacific region has escalated over the last eight years, and the Gaza conflict could possibly spread to more incendiary regional wars across the Middle East. But Russia’s predations in Ukraine are in the here and now and have already had tangible and grotesque manifestations (not the least of which are lives lost.)

Countries such as France could be wishy-washy about their NATO membership before the Ukraine war. No longer. Europe’s Baltic states have always recognized the dangers of an expansionist Russia. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said last month that a “nightmare scenario” would arise if the US pulled its forces and military aid out of NATO and Europe.

Trump, of course, revels in nightmare scenarios and gains political traction by presenting himself as the only cure for the demons he believes haunt the US. It’s a paranoid vision with deep roots in American history, but Trump excels at it, and it’s a recurring feature of his political rallies. While he would be hard-pressed to locate most countries on a map, he paints the world outside the US with the same threatening, paranoid brush.

One would think, then, that Putin and Russia would present easy villains for Trump — easier, say, than NATO, democracy, a strong trade relationship with Western Europe and the like. But Trump has wanted to do business in Russia for a long time (and actively pursued a real estate deal there during the 2016 presidential campaign), he fawns over dictators, and Russia lent his effort a hand when he ran for president eight years ago. Consistency isn’t his strong suit. An opportunity to grift is usually more predictive.

Trump also understands the emotional tethers binding him to his supporters and knows which strings to pluck to rile them up. And he finds policies to criticise that do need attention, such as the immigration crisis at the US southern border and whether Europe pays its fair share for its own defense.

But the solution to the immigration crisis isn’t simply building a wall. The solution to pressing a critical economic and political partner into funding a defense pact isn’t warning that the US will allow Russia to attack it — and possibly following through on the threat. The real world needs solutions that are less infantile and dangerous.

“Encouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes is appalling and unhinged — and it endangers American national security, global stability, and our economy at home,” a spokesman for President Joe Biden said over the weekend, responding to Trump’s statements about NATO.

All of those words are true, and voters concerned about US and global stability, liberty and economic progress should give weight to them — and think about the virtues of having adults in the White House.