President Donald Trump gave his strongest hint yet that the United States may leave NATO, saying the prospect was now “beyond reconsideration.”
Trump’s frustrations with NATO have reached a boiling point over many NATO countries’ lack of support for the U.S.-Israel war with Iran. After weeks of swipes at NATO countries, the president told the Telegraph in an interview that he was never a fan of the alliance and that he might withdraw the U.S. from it after the war.
“Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration,” Trump said. “I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.”
When the U.S. needed its help the most, NATO was “beyond not being there, it was actually hard to believe.”
He contrasted NATO’s stance toward Iran with the alliance’s stance toward the war in Ukraine.
“We’ve been there automatically, including Ukraine,” Trump 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.”
The United Kingdom, the U.S.’s traditional closest ally, has been the primary focus of Trump’s ire over its failure to enter the conflict. He’s repeatedly drawn an unfavorable contrast between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the U.K.’s most beloved leader of the past century, saying days into the operation, “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”
Trump tapped into that sentiment again in his Telegraph interview, denigrating the Royal Navy as not up to the task.
“You don’t even have a navy. You’re too old and had aircraft carriers that didn’t work,” he said, referring to the U.K.
On Tuesday, U.K. First Sea Lord General Sir Gwyn Jenkins admitted that the Royal Navy wasn’t ready for war, and wouldn’t be until the end of the decade. Of the Royal Navy’s six destroyers, four were out of service and under repair at the start of the war. The once largest navy in the world had to borrow a warship from Germany to fulfill its NATO obligations to patrol the North Atlantic.
Trump continued his bashing of Starmer, dismissing him entirely when asked if he should spend more on the U.K.’s defense.
“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,” he said.
Even though the U.K. recently signed on to an effort expressing a willingness to contribute to an effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and has given the U.S. permission to use its bases for defensive strikes, it has yet to fully enter the conflict. In a Wednesday press conference, Starmer said the best thing for the U.K. to do is to “push for de-escalation in the Middle East,” and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, though he didn’t specify how.
“The defense secretary has been in the Middle East speaking to our partners, and the U.K. has now brought together 35 nations around our statement of intent to push as one for maritime security across the Gulf,” he said.
“And today I can announce that later this week, the foreign secretary will host a meeting that brings those nations together for the first time, where we will assess all viable diplomatic and political measures that we can take to restore freedom of navigation, guarantee the safety of trapped ships and seafarers, and resume the movement of vital commodities,” Starmer added.
Starmer’s most pointed comments were directed toward the U.K.’s commitment to NATO. He hailed it as the “single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen,” then proceeded to give an implicit criticism of Trump, though not referencing him directly.
“Secondly, that, whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I’m going to act in the British national interest in all the decisions that I make,” he said. “And that’s why I’ve been absolutely clear that this is not our war, and we’re not going to get dragged into it.”
In a portent of how bad U.S.-NATO relations have become, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a longtime cheerleader for the alliance, gave a sober assessment of the alliance on Tuesday.
“If now we have reached a point where the NATO alliance means that we can’t use those bases, that in fact, we can no longer use those bases to defend America’s interests, then NATO is a one-way street,” he said.
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“Then NATO is simply about us having troops in Europe to defend Europe. But when we need their help — not their help — we’re not asking them to conduct airstrikes. When we need them to allow us to use their military bases, their answer is ‘no.’ Then why are we in NATO? You have to ask that question,” Rubio added.
“I think there’s no doubt, unfortunately, after this conflict is concluded, we are going to have to reexamine that relationship. We’re going to have to reexamine the value of NATO and that alliance for our country,” he said.