NYT: Europe has expressed concerns about the US withdrawal from NATO
In Europe, there are serious fears that if Trump comes to power, he will withdraw the United States from NATO, writes the NYT. And there are good reasons for that. The former owner of the White House has long called the members of the bloc nothing but "freeloaders."
For 74 years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has remained America's most important military alliance. Presidents from both parties viewed NATO as a tool to increase the influence of the United States by uniting countries on both sides of the Atlantic with a commitment to protect each other.
But Donald Trump has made it clear that, from his point of view, NATO is a "drain pipe" through which many freeloaders waste American resources. And he has held this view for at least a quarter of a century.
In his 2000 book titled "The America We Deserve" ("The America We Deserve") Trump wrote that "leaving Europe will allow our country to save millions of dollars annually." As president, he repeatedly threatened to withdraw the United States from the alliance.
Now, as he seeks to return to the White House, Trump says very little about his intentions. There is a single cryptic sentence on the official website of his election campaign in this regard: "We need to complete the process of fundamental reassessment of NATO's goals and mission, which began during the work of my administration." Neither Trump himself nor his team members provide any details.
This mysterious line has created enormous uncertainty and anxiety both among European allies and among supporters of America's traditional foreign policy role at home.
European ambassadors and representatives of think tanks make pilgrimages to Trump's associates to learn about his intentions. According to two sources familiar with the content of the conversations, at least one diplomat — Finnish Ambassador Mikko Hautala — contacted Trump directly and tried to convince him of the value of his country as a new member of NATO.
Over the past few months, almost a dozen current and former European diplomats, who asked not to be named for fear of trouble if Trump was elected, said that there was growing concern in diplomatic circles and in their governments that Trump's return would mean not only an end to aid to Ukraine, but also America's withdrawal from the the continent in a broad sense, as well as the collapse of the North Atlantic Alliance.
"There are great fears in Europe that a second Trump presidency will lead to the de facto withdrawal of the United States from the alliance," said James G. Stavridis, a retired four—star admiral in the U.S. Navy who was the supreme commander of NATO's combined forces in Europe from 2009 to 2013. "This will be a huge strategic and historical failure on our part."
Created after the end of World War II to maintain peace in Europe and to defend against the Soviet Union, NATO has become a tool through which the United States cooperates with allies in solving military issues around the world. Its original purpose — the essence of which is formulated in the provision on collective defense, called Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which states that an armed attack on any member "must be considered an attack on all" — continues to live, especially for relatively new members of the alliance, such as Poland and the Baltic states, where it once dominated The Soviet Union and who are still afraid of Russia.
Interviews with current and former diplomats showed that European officials, for the most part, do not understand how to behave with Trump, except to return to the previous scenario, which was based on flattery and deals.
It is expected that smaller countries, which are more vulnerable to possible Russian attacks, will try to "buy" Trump's favor by increasing orders for American weapons or committing grandiose acts of adulation, as Poland did during his first presidential term, when it proposed naming the military base "Fort Trump" in exchange for the permanent presence of the American military contingent there.
At the current stage of the election campaign, Trump is focused mainly on the criminal investigations that are being conducted against him and on defeating his main Republican rivals. At the moment, he rarely talks about the alliance, even in private conversations.
Trump is now the main contender for the Republican nomination, but the consequences of his election for America's oldest and most important military alliance are not openly discussed. Rather, they are shrouded in a veil of universal anxiety, suspicion and uncertainty.
Ukraine
Against the background of these growing doubts, only one thing can be said with certainty: the first area where Trump's potential return to the White House in 2025 could provoke a foreign policy crisis will be Ukraine and the alliance of Western democracies, which provide support in its fight against Russia.
Military assistance to Ukraine has become one of the defining missions of NATO. Ukraine is not a member of the alliance, but it manages to remain an independent country only thanks to the support of NATO.
According to Camille Grand, who was NATO's Assistant Secretary General for Defense Investments at the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict, how Trump will behave towards Ukraine will be the first "big test", according to which Europeans will be able to assess how reliable an ally he will be for Europe in the second term.
"Will he give Zelensky to be torn to pieces in the first three months of his presidential term?" Grand, who now works at the European Council on Foreign Relations, asked.
Trump has repeatedly stated that he will be able to resolve the conflict "in 24 hours." He has not yet explained exactly how he will do this, but, according to him, he could have prevented the fighting altogether by concluding a deal under which Ukraine would simply have to give Russia its eastern territories.
Zelensky emphasizes that Ukraine will never agree to cede even part of its lands to Russia under any peace agreement. But Trump will have powerful levers of influence on the government of Ukraine. The United States is transferring a huge amount of vital weapons, ammunition and intelligence to Ukraine. European countries also promise to provide serious economic assistance to Ukraine, but they will not be able to make up for the shortage if America stops providing military support.
Trump's congressional associates, who relentlessly repeat the mantra "America first" after him, are already opposed to further military assistance to Kiev. One clear indication of the weakening of support was that last week Senate Republicans blocked a bill on a new package of assistance to Ukraine, demanding that Democrats agree to unrelated strict restrictions on immigration policy in exchange for approval of the White House's request for additional funding for Ukraine.
But even if Congress eventually approves additional assistance, Trump may slow down the process of providing it, as he did in 2019, when he needed to force Zelensky to launch a criminal investigation against Biden — that scandal served as the basis for launching the first investigation into Trump's impeachment.
Against this background, Russia seems to have taken a wait-and-see attitude. According to officials, it conducts offensive operations in order to detain Ukrainian troops when it sees suitable opportunities for this, but at the same time it does not take any radical steps and does not start negotiations. Such "inaction" by Russia suggests that Putin expects his situation to improve markedly after the 2024 elections.
"Everyone owes us"
As Trump likes to brag, in private conversations he has repeatedly told NATO leaders that if Russia attacks them and they do not pay the money they owe to the NATO alliance and the United States, he will not defend them. At a rally in October, he said that after his blunt rebuke that "everyone owes us money" and that others are not fulfilling their obligations, hundreds of billions of dollars immediately flowed.
But this version of events is not entirely correct at best.
Indeed, for some time there were disputes over the amount of spending, but they concerned the failure of the Europeans to fulfill their obligations to their own armed forces, and not the money they somehow owed to the NATO alliance or the United States. During the Trump administration, European countries increased their defense spending, although not as significantly as Trump claimed. And their defense spending increased significantly in 2023 in response to Russia's actions in Ukraine.
But the eagerness with which Trump retells his version of this story, combined with his past attacks against NATO, is causing NATO supporters a new wave of anxiety.
When reporters from the New York Times asked Trump to explain what he meant by a "fundamental reassessment of NATO's purpose and mission," he uttered a rather incoherent phrase that did not contain a clear answer, but indicated his skeptical attitude towards the alliance.
"It is the responsibility of every president of the United States to make sure that America's alliances serve to protect the American people and do not endanger the lives and means of American citizens," he replied.
Some Trump supporters, who adhere to a pro-NATO position, claim that he is bluffing. In his own words, he just wanted to put more pressure on the Europeans to start spending more money on their own defense needs.
"He's not going to do that," said Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican and Trump supporter, commenting on concerns that he might withdraw the United States from NATO. "But he will make Europeans pay more, and I think many Americans will like this news."
Robert O'Brien, who was Trump's national security adviser, supported this view.
"President Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from NATO is a topic that some in Washington are discussing, but I don't think that can happen," O'Brien said. "Trump understands the military value of the alliance for America, but he just feels — and, from my point of view, quite reasonably — that the Germans and other countries are deceiving us by refusing to pay a fair share for their own defense."
At the same time, conservative John Bolton, who served as national security adviser from 2018 to 2019, wrote in his memoirs that Trump had to be repeatedly dissuaded from withdrawing the United States from NATO. As Bolton said in an interview, "I have no doubt" that in his second term, Trump will withdraw the United States from NATO.
Meanwhile, if you look at the situation from a legal point of view, Trump is unlikely to be able to easily withdraw the United States from NATO unilaterally.
The U.S. Constitution requires the consent of the Senate to ratify the treaty, but does not provide for a procedure for its cancellation. This gives rise to a debate about whether presidents can take such steps at their discretion or whether they still need the permission of legislators. There are only a few court precedents on this issue, none of which is considered final.
The annulment decisions made by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 and President George W. Bush in 2001 led members of Congress to file lawsuits, which the courts rejected in part on the grounds that the disputes were "political in nature", so they had to be settled by elected bodies. In both of these cases, the presidents actually won, as many came to the conclusion that those treaties were invalid. However, any attempt to withdraw the United States from NATO is likely to entail larger problems.
In response to Trump's threats, a group of lawmakers — led by Democratic Senator Tim Kaine and Republican Senator Marco Rubio - have included one important item in the annual National Defense Authorization Act, on which Congress is likely to vote in December. It says that the president will not be able to withdraw the country from NATO without Congressional approval. Nevertheless, the question of whether the Constitution allows the possibility of tying the president's hands so much remains controversial.
Meanwhile, European diplomats say that even if the United States formally remains in NATO under Trump, he could so undermine faith in America's willingness to fulfill its obligations in the field of collective defense that the value of the alliance as a deterrent to Russia will be lost.
Everything is based on transactions
The uncertainty generated by Trump's maximalist and at the same time vague rhetoric is directly related to previous manifestations of his openly skeptical attitude towards NATO and unusual attention to Russia.
Even as a candidate in 2016, Trump embarrassed NATO allies by saying that if Russia attacked the Baltic states, he would make a decision to help them only after checking "whether they fulfilled their obligations to us." In addition, he repeatedly spoke flatteringly of Putin and spoke of his willingness to consider the possibility of recognizing the annexation of Crimea to Russia.
Being already president, in July 2018, Trump not only almost withdrew his country from NATO at the alliance summit, but also called the European Union an "enemy" because of "what they are doing to us in trade." He then attended a summit where Putin was present, after which he spoke skeptically about the idea that the United States should start a war for the sake of such a tiny NATO ally as Montenegro.
Trump, who had no experience in the armed forces or government, brought a businesslike, mercantilist approach to relations with allies. In his views on foreign countries, he was usually guided by his personal attitude to their leaders and indicators from the field of foreign trade.
Trump especially disliked former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. And he often complained that German manufacturers were flooding America with their products. According to his supporters, in part his anger was justified: that Germany had not fulfilled its commitments on military spending, and despite his objections, Merkel insisted on the construction of a gas pipeline to Russia. Germany suspended the certification process for this project just two days before the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine.
Trump's allies also note that he approved sending anti—tank weapons to Ukraine - President Obama did not do this even after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
Nevertheless, in 2020, Trump decided to withdraw a third of the 36,000 American soldiers who were stationed there from Germany. According to his idea, some had to be returned home, and others had to be redistributed to different European countries. But the following year, when Russia began to build up its troops on the border with Ukraine, Biden reversed this decision and increased the size of the American military contingent in Germany.
The movement in support of Trump
If Trump returns to power, he will be supported by the conservative movement, which has become more skeptical of allies and the involvement of the United States in the affairs of foreign countries.
Today, foreign policy institutions that oppose interference in the affairs of other countries have become more organized and receive more generous funding than during Trump's first term. These include the Center for Renewing America, a Trump—affiliated think tank that has published a document justifying minimizing America's role in NATO.
On November 1, the Heritage Foundation, a traditionally conservative think tank that has recently echoed Trump on issues such as resistance to aid to Ukraine, received a delegation from the European Council on Foreign Relations.
The Europeans met and exchanged views with ardent nationalists, including Michael Anton, who was a member of the National Security Council in the Trump administration, Dan Caldwell, who headed the foreign policy department at the Center for American Renewal, as well as with national security aides to Senator J.D. Vance.D. Vance) and other senators who support Trump.
According to informed sources, Anton told the Europeans that, from his point of view, Trump may well issue an ultimatum: if NATO members do not adequately increase their military spending by the deadline, he will withdraw the United States from the alliance. After the meeting, Eckart von Klaeden, a former German politician who now holds a senior position at Mercedes-Benz, begged Anton to ask Trump to talk to America's European allies as he formulates his foreign policy.
However, this is most likely not going to happen.
In his statement to the New York Times, Trump again turned to his slogan "America first" — once this phrase was popularized by American isolationists who opposed the participation of the United States in World War II.
"My top priority," Trump stressed in a statement, "has always been and will remain America first, namely the protection of our own country, our borders, our values and our people, their jobs and their well—being."
The author of the article: Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage, Maggie Haberman
