US-Europe rift widens as Trump lashes out at NATO allies
US President Donald Trump says he’s strongly considering pulling the United States out of NATO, ratcheting up his criticism of European leaders and exposing a wider rift in the trans-Atlantic alliance — this time over the Iran war.
While Trump’s talk of a possible NATO pullout dates back years, the comments to The Telegraph newspaper in the UK, published Wednesday, were among the clearest and most disparaging yet — suggesting that the fracture has deepened perhaps to a point of no return.
Asked whether he would reconsider US membership in the alliance after the conflict in the Middle East ends, Trump replied, “I would say (it’s) beyond reconsideration.” Congress passed legislation in 2023 that would prevent any president from pulling out of NATO without its approval. The Trump administration, during his first term, had insisted the president had such authority on his own.
It’s unclear whether Trump would challenge in any way the new law, which is the first of its kind and with the NATO provision specifically championed at the time by Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who was a Florida senator at the time.
There are efforts underway to reinforce America’s relationship with NATO, with its secretary-general, Mark Rutte, scheduled to visit Washington next week. The visit by Rutte was confirmed by a White House official who was not authorised to comment on the yet to be formally announced visit and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his government was “fully committed to NATO” and called it “the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen.”
Before a Trump speech later Wednesday, US Sen Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, and Sen Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said in a joint statement that “NATO is the most successful military alliance in history” and stressed that the Senate “will continue to support the alliance for the peace and protection it provides” the United States, Europe and the world. Many European leaders have felt political pressure over the war, which faces opposition in their countries and has sent petroleum prices soaring as Iran has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.
The UK is working on plans that could help assuage Trump, and Starmer said military planners will work on a postwar security plan for the Strait. On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper will host a virtual meeting of 35 countries that have signed up to help ensure security for shipping in the Strait - after the fighting ends.
Iulia-Sabina Joja, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, alluded to Trump’s exhortation Tuesday for allies to “go get your own oil” in a social media post, insisting it wasn’t America’s job to secure the Strait.
“The Europeans are not keen to go into an active warfare situation, to so-called get’ their energy out of the Strait,” said Joba, a former deputy project manager at NATO Allied Command Transformation in Virginia.
Time to reexamine the relationship, says Rubio says: As energy prices have spiked, Trump has called NATO allies “cowards” for not sending their military ships to the Strait. It’s an amplification of his message since his first term that European partners should assume greater responsibility for their own security.
Speaking Tuesday on Fox News, Rubio said, “I do think, unfortunately, we are going to have to reexamine whether or not this alliance that has served this country well for a while is still serving that purpose.”
Rubio raised questions with interviewer Sean Hannity about whether NATO has “become a one-way street where America is simply in a position to defend Europe - but when we need the help of our allies, they’re going to deny us basing rights and they’re going to deny us overflight.”
The fraying of NATO could weaken the alliance’s deterrence, particularly with Russia: It seeks to limit conflict by having Russian President Vladimir Putin believe that NATO would retaliate if he decides to one day expand Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
