Asked whether he would reconsider US membership in the alliance after the war on Iran ends, Trump replied: “Oh yes, I would say (it’s) beyond reconsideration”.
Contacted by The Associated Press, NATO did not provide an immediate comment.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, asked about the comment, said Britain was “fully committed to NATO” and called it “the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen.”
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.
“Whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I am going to act in the British national interest in all the decisions I make,” Starmer said on Wednesday.
Time to ‘re-examine the relationship,’ Rubio says
Long-simmering tensions within the alliance have bubbled up again over the war.
As energy prices have spiked, Trump has been desperate to get countries to send their ships to the Strait of Hormuz. He has called NATO allies “cowards.”
Even since his first term, Trump has urged the allies to assume greater responsibility for their own security and spend more on defence. He has argued that the US has done more for them than the other way around.
A US pull-out would essentially spell the end of NATO, which flourished for decades under American leadership.
Speaking Tuesday on Fox News, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: “I do think, unfortunately, we are going to have to re-examine 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 criticism from Rubio could raise concerns in the alliance about whether the U.S. under Trump may no longer consider NATO as worth the time, money and personnel that Washington has invested in it.
François Heisbourg, senior adviser for Europe at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, called Trump’s tough new rhetoric “a new step. It’s a very disturbing one. I think that no member of NATO signed on to join an offensive alliance.”
Ukraine, supplied in large part by Europe, would be the first casualty of a US pull-out, he said – European countries would have to increase their defence spending, speed up procurement and take time to replace what the United States might no longer deliver.
The UK is working on plans that could help assuage Trump.
On Thursday, 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 war.
Starmer said military planners will also work on a post-war security plan for the strait.
NATO is built on Article 5 of its founding treaty, which pledges that an attack on any one member will be met with a response from them all.
As the Iran war has spread, missiles and drones have been fired toward NATO member Turkey and a British military base on Cyprus, fuelling speculation about what might prompt NATO to trigger its collective security guarantee and come to their rescue.
The alliance has not intervened or signalled any plan to. Secretary-General Mark Rutte – who has voiced support for Trump and America’s role in the alliance – has been focusing mostly on Russia’s war against Ukraine, which borders four NATO countries.
NATO operates uniquely by consensus. All 32 countries must agree for it to take decisions, so political priorities play a role. Even invoking Article 5 requires agreement among the allies. Turkey or the UK cannot trigger it alone.
The US can’t just simply walk away all that easy. A Defence Act passed under US President Joe Biden two years ago prevents an American president from withdrawing from NATO without support of two-thirds of the Senate or under another act by Congress.
European leaders have called for the war to stop and want the United States and Iran to return to negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, which America and Israel see as a threat.
The vocal opposition in Europe to Trump’s war against Iran has started to turn into action.
Spain has closed its airspace to US planes involved in the Iran war.
Early last month, France agreed to let the US Air Force use a base in southern France after receiving a “full guarantee” from the United States that planes not involved in carrying out strikes against Iran would land there.
The government of Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, long seen as one of the European Union leaders with the best personal ties with Trump, denied permission for US bombers to land at the Sigonella air base in Sicily for one mission related to the Middle East.
Franco Pavoncello, a professor of political science at Rome’s John Cabot University, said that decision might cost Meloni a lot of her political capital in Washington.
But he said: “The Italian government could not be seen by the European allies as too submissive to American interests, as it would have very negative repercussions both at home and in the EU.”
US relations with Europe had already soured in recent months over Trump’s call for Greenland — a semiautonomous territory of stalwart NATO ally Denmark — to become part of the United States, prompting many EU countries to rally behind Copenhagen.
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