{"id":116440,"date":"2024-02-13T08:02:11","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T13:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=116440"},"modified":"2024-02-13T08:02:11","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T13:02:11","slug":"experts-fear-trumps-nato-comments-made-europe-less-secure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2024\/02\/13\/experts-fear-trumps-nato-comments-made-europe-less-secure\/","title":{"rendered":"Experts fear Trump’s NATO comments ‘made Europe less secure’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"DW \u2014 Alexandra von Nahmen<\/a>, Donald Trump\u2019s questioning of the core of NATO has sent a chill through allies in Europe. They are working on contingency plans should Trump return to the White House. But the damage to the alliance seems already done.<\/span><\/strong><\/h1>\n

Donald Trump\u2019s questioning of the core of NATO has sent a chill through allies in Europe. They are working on contingency plans should Trump return to the White House. But the damage to the alliance seems already done.<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/header>\n
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NATO “cannot be an ‘a la carte’ military alliance, it cannot be a military alliance that works depending on the humor of the president of the US,” Josep Borrell, the\u00a0foreign policy chief of the\u00a0European Union<\/a>\u00a0(EU), told reporters in Brussels in response to Donald Trump’s recent\u00a0comments about NATO.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, at a campaign rally in South Carolina, Trump had told the crowd that, as president, he had warned NATO allies that he “would encourage”\u00a0Russia<\/a>\u00a0“to do whatever the hell they want” to countries that did not\u00a0“pay [their] bills.”<\/span>\u00a0His comments sent a chill across Europe, alarming\u00a0NATO’s European members,\u00a0already agitated<\/a>\u00a0about the prospect of a second Donald Trump presidency.<\/p>\n

“Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg responded in a statement on Sunday.<\/p>\n

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As president, Donald Trump threatened to withdraw from NATO many timesImage: Francisco Seco\/AP Photo\/picture alliance<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NATO grapples with Trump’s threats<\/h2>\n

As president, Trump had threatened to withdraw from NATO many times. He warned he would make Europeans pay for America’s protection and repeatedly threw into doubt the US commitment to the core of the alliance \u2014\u00a0a promise enshrined in Article Five of the North Atlantic Treaty providing that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.”<\/p>\n

The fact that he is doing this again \u2014\u00a0attacking “the soul of the alliance,”\u00a0as some at NATO view it \u2014\u00a0this time on the\u00a0campaign trail, has been described by diplomats as “worrying.” After all, many allies fear a potential second presidency might feature an unhinged and much bolder Trump than during his first tenure.<\/p>\n

“The last time that Trump was in office, it was the biggest upheaval in\u00a0the Europe-United States relations since the beginning of the EU,” Alison Woodward, a\u00a0senior associate fellow with the Institute for European Studies in Brussels, told DW.<\/p>\n

“It was really a\u00a0very dramatic change<\/a>,” she added. “And so, I think the leaders now are bracing themselves for what could possibly occur if Donald Trump does get reelected.” During Trump’s first presidency, the US had imposed punitive tariffs on trade with EU members, noticeably chilling trans-Atlantic relations.<\/p>\n

A critical time for NATO<\/h2>\n

Trump’s recent remarks come at a critical time for the alliance, with some allies\u00a0openly warning<\/a>\u00a0about a potential escalation of\u00a0Russia’s war in Ukraine<\/a>, while a new US aid package for Kyiv is stalled in Congress and Europe is struggling to ramp up its weapons production.<\/p>\n

Trump’s comments “increase the probability that NATO will be tested by Russia, especially if Donald Trump would win the elections, but perhaps not only then,” said Michal Baranowski, managing director of the German Marshall Fund East, a US\u00a0think tank.<\/p>\n

“The comments made Europe less secure,” he told DW, adding that Trump “created a question in the minds of many leaders, including on NATO’s eastern flank, whether the US\u00a0will stand with all the allies in case of an attack on one of them.”<\/p>\n

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German Chancellor Scholz holding talks with US President Biden during a recent visit to the White House.Image: Andrew Harnik\/AP Photo\/picture alliance<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These worries are echoed by diplomats in Brussels, who privately say that Trump’s comments have already inflicted damage to the alliance. The biggest problem seems to be that his claims are so difficult to rebuke. Trump lashing out at NATO allies for “not paying their bill” is a misleading statement because technically,\u00a0there is no bill to pay.<\/p>\n

Trump’s comments a wake-up call?<\/h2>\n

Trump’s comment was referring to the fact that a significant number of NATO member states are still spending less than 2 percent of their GDP \u2014 a goal agreed at\u00a0a\u00a0NATO summit in Wales in 2014.<\/p>\n

Germany is expected to meet the target this year for the very first time since the end of the Cold War, mostly thanks to a special fund of \u20ac100 billion ($107 billion)\u00a0created in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But further funding is far from\u00a0guaranteed.<\/p>\n

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