NATO allies refused to help Trump protect commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz or let the US use their bases to attack Iran during the war.
Washington: President Donald Trump lashed out at NATO after meeting with the military alliance’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, making clear that his anger over the organisation’s stance on the Iran war remained acute.
“NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN. REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!” the president wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday evening.
Asked at a briefing earlier Wednesday if he might try to pull the US out of NATO, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “it’s something the president has discussed, and I think it’s something the president will be discussing in a couple of hours” when he meets Rutte.
Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, was in the US on a mission to temper Trump’s public displeasure after NATO allies refused to help him protect commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz or let the US use some of their bases to attack Iran during the war that began on Feb 28.
Trump has also revived his grievance that NATO countries wouldn’t give him Greenland, a Danish territory.
Rutte left the White House without a word to reporters after a meeting of about two hours.
“Yes, it’s true, not all Europeans lived up to those commitments, and I totally understand that he’s disappointed,” he told CNN later – after praising Trump and taking his side over the European countries, including Spain, that had openly opposed the war and refused to assist the Americans.
At the same time, however, he defended the “large majority of European nations” that provided basing, logistics and overflight support.
He spoke of “widespread support” on the continent for the goals of degrading Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capacities, while acknowledging that most Europeans wanted to reach these goals diplomatically.
Rutte criticised this diplomatic approach, saying diplomacy could take too long, and compared the situation with Iran to North Korea. He evaded questions about whether Trump would leave NATO or withdraw troops from European countries.
At the briefing, Leavitt said she had a message from the president: NATO was “tested and they failed” over the course of the US and Israeli war against Iran.
“It’s quite sad that NATO turned their backs on the American people over the course of the last six weeks, when it’s the American people who have been funding their defense,” she said.
Leaving NATO would be challenging.
A law enacted in 2023 that was championed by then-Senator Marco Rubio, now Trump’s secretary of state, prevents a president from suspending or terminating the NATO treaty unless the Senate agrees by a two-thirds majority or Congress passes a new law.
Neither of those are possibilities, as Republicans who favor the alliance will likely side with Democrats to circumvent any action Trump might urge Congress to take. In any case, the GOP holds a narrow majority in both houses.
Yet there’s still plenty Trump, who has been dismissive of the alliance across both of his terms, could do to undermine or pull the US back from it.
The US is NATO’s indispensable partner – with 80,000 personnel in Europe and has a central role on missile defence, nuclear deterrence and intelligence sharing.
“Workarounds like troop reductions or funding cuts could erode US participation without formal exit while stopping short of treaty withdrawal,” according to a Bloomberg Intelligence note.
