WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is considering a major change to the U.S.’ participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, according to three current and former senior U.S. officials and one congressional official.
Trump has discussed with aides the possibility of calibrating America’s NATO engagement in a way that favors members of the alliance that spend a set percentage of their gross domestic product on defense, the officials said.
As part of the potential policy shift, the U.S. might not defend a fellow NATO member that is attacked if the country doesn’t meet the defense spending threshold, the officials said. If Trump does make that change, it would mark a significant shift from a core tenet of the alliance known as Article 5, which says that an attack on any NATO country is an attack on all of them.
The president is similarly considering a policy change in which the U.S. may choose to prioritize military exercises with NATO members that are spending the set percentage of their GDPs on defense, the officials said. His administration has already signaled to America’s European allies that the U.S. could reduce its military presence in Europe, and one option now under consideration is to reposition some U.S. troops in the region so they are focused in or around NATO countries that have scaled their defense spending to meet the specific percentage of their GDPs, the officials said.
Asked about Trump considering making these changes to how the U.S. engages with NATO, a National Security Council official said in a written statement, “President Trump is committed to NATO and Article V.”
Sen. Chris Coons, of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for Defense and a senior senator on the Foreign Relations panel, said Trump’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, “gave very reassuring answers” on the administration’s commitment to NATO and Article 5.
Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO countries for not meeting the current NATO member goal of spending 2% of their GDP on defense. He has argued that the disparity is unfair and puts an added burden on the U.S.
NATO countries agreed more than a decade ago to set the spending goal for each of them at 2% of GDP. But Trump has pushed to increase that percentage. Most recently he said NATO members should spend 5% of their GDP on defense, though the U.S. does not currently do that.
“NATO has to pay more,” Trump said in January after taking office. “It’s ridiculous because it affects them a lot more. We have an ocean in between.”
According to NATO’s most recent statistics, last year 23 NATO members’ defense spending exceeded 2% of their GDP. Five of those nations — Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Poland and the U.S. — spent more than 3% on defense. Poland had the highest percentage, dedicating 4.12% of its GDP to defense.
The potential shift in how the U.S. participates in NATO comes as Trump is pushing European allies to do more to aid Ukraine in its war with Russia and to play a major role in maintaining peace in the country if a deal to end the war is reached.
“I was contacted by several European ambassadors concerned about rumors that Trump might make some negative announcement about NATO,” Coons told NBC News in an interview on Wednesday. Trump didn’t announce anything at his joint address to Congress on Tuesday night, but Coons said, “If you’re not given pause by everything about President Trump’s statements and actions on foreign policy, you’re not paying attention.”
Trump threatened to withdraw the U.S. from NATO during his first term and has questioned the merits of Article 5 for the U.S. The article was designed to protect European nations from the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It has been triggered just once, after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.
Ukraine has sought NATO membership, but the Trump administration has said that would not be part of any negotiated peace deal.
