US President Donald Trump said he is considering pulling the United States out of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, describing the defence alliance as a “paper tiger” in a newspaper interview published Wednesday.
“I would say it’s beyond reconsideration,” Trump said in remarks to UK newspaper The Telegraph. “I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger and Putin knows that too, by the way.”
Trump has repeatedly criticized Western allies for failing to respond to his call to assemble a naval force to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which has effectively been closed by Tehran as the Middle East conflict continues.
“Beyond not being there, it was actually hard to believe. And I didn’t do a big sale. I just said, ‘Hey,’ you know, I didn’t insist too much. I just think it should be automatic,” Trump said.
The comments were echoed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said Washington would have to “reexamine” its relationship with NATO after the conflict.
“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 in that alliance for our country,” Rubio said in an interview on Fox News.
Rubio, who said he had previously been one of NATO’s strongest defenders in the US Senate, noted that much of the alliance’s value came from American military bases in Europe that allowed the US to project power globally.
“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.
He added that while Washington was not asking NATO allies to conduct air strikes in the war against Iran, the US expected access to military bases when needed.
“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 said.
His comments come after several European countries reportedly restricted the US military from using bases on their soil. Italy denied a US aircraft permission to land en route to the Middle East, while Spain closed its airspace to US planes carrying out missions against Iran.
