Senate advances measure to tie president’s hands on NATO withdrawal
Emily Jacobs
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Senators voted to include a bill that would prevent any U.S. president from withdrawing from NATO in its version of the National Defense Authorization Act on Wednesday.
Members voted 65 to 28 in favor of an amendment brought by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who co-sponsored the original bill with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), to add the legislation to the annual defense spending bill. Members will spend the next few weeks debating the NDAA, which sets Pentagon policy and authorizes $886 billion in defense spending for fiscal 2024, a bill that the House passed last week with several partisan provisions that are certain to be on the chopping block when the bill eventually goes to Conference Committee.
Kaine expressed confidence ahead of the vote on Wednesday afternoon when asked by the Washington Examiner how he felt about the chances of his amendment passing.
“I feel good about it,” the Virginia Democrat said, noting that the bill passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the last Congress with “good, strong bipartisan support.”
The Kaine-Rubio legislation would block the U.S. commander in chief from terminating the country’s NATO membership without Senate approval or an act of Congress. The two reintroduced the bill last week during the alliance’s annual summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, to showcase continued U.S. support.
“The President shall not suspend, terminate, denounce, or withdraw the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty, done at Washington, DC, April 4, 1949, except by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, provided that two-thirds of the Senators present concur or pursuant to an Act of Congress,” the measure says.
Facing questions about the differences between both chambers’ NDAA bills, Senate leadership on both sides remained positive on Wednesday, with members saying they were pleased to be able to vote on amendments during this year’s process.
“I am excited that the NDAA has come forward,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said at the weekly GOP leadership conference. “We’re going to have amendments as we should have. It’s been several years before we’ve been able to have a robust process, and we’re all embracing that.”
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the NDAA bill had thus far gone through an “open and constructive process,”
“For more than six decades, we have worked in good faith to pass the NDAA,” he said. “It’s a prime example of how the Senate can work constructively to provide for our nation’s defense.”