EXPERT INTERVIEW – Donald Trump has issues with NATO. That much seems clear from his past statements as a candidate and as president. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll carry out his veiled threats to abandon the alliance, or ignore the American commitment to Article V of the NATO charter, which states that an attack on any NATO member must be treated as an attack on the alliance writ large. As with many other questions involving national and global security, world leaders and policy analysts are trying to understand precisely where the Trump-Vance administration will stand when it comes to NATO and its support of the Ukrainian resistance against Russia.
As president, Trump declared the alliance “obsolete,” and he has threatened to withdraw U.S. support or pull out of NATO entirely. Earlier this year, as a candidate, Trump warned that the U.S. wouldn’t defend NATO members that don’t meet their targets of spending at least 2 percent of their budgets on defense (more than two-thirds of NATO nations now have met those targets). Trump said he would “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to those countries.
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