Throwing caution to the winds comes quite easy to President Donald Trump, which is evident in his boastful words and in his whimsical acts of arbitrariness. More so because his Iran operation may not be working to his plan. But in threatening to pull out from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on April 1, the mercurial and temperamental POTUS may have bitten off more than he can chew.
Here, the law may not permit him to do so. With many US Presidents of the past having withdrawn from international treaties, in 2023, President Joe Biden had enacted an act that specifically laid down that the POTUS cannot withdraw from NATO without Congressional approval.
The National Defense Authorization Act 2024 also mandated the US Senate’s approval with two-thirds majority if Trump wants to pull out from NATO. And going by the numbers in the Senate and Trump’s decline in popularity, it would be an extremely uphill task. The other option is an act passed by the Congress which would need cross-voting. For all practical purposes, at best, the issue could land up in the courts.
For much of his second presidential tenure, Trump has berated the NATO alliance as “freeloaders” and recently as “paper tigers”. Infuriated over the lack of support among the European NATO member countries for the joint US-Israel military action in Iran, he has now threatened to pull out from the alliance that had safeguarded western interests in Europe and elsewhere.
What Trump wanted was a blanket support to the US-Israel operation in Iran as well as in warding off Iranian sway over the Hormuz Strait. One indication of the chasm that had set in between the US and other NATO members came to fore during Trump’s ardent desire to annex Greenland and make it part of America. Trump’s Greenland plan had alarmed the non-US NATO members.
The European NATO members also contend that they did not see a role in Iran because they were not consulted before the US action nor was the US attacked.
In the not very far past, these member countries had played handmaiden to the US when they offered complete support in cash, kind, ‘boots in the ground’ for the US war in Afghanistan.
Set up in 1949 in the aftermath of the Second World War, NATO has been the single most important bulwark to safeguard western interests from Communist Soviet Russia’s influence.
Logistically, a US pull-out from NATO would be a massive effort because of the numerous US military architecture spread across Europe. European security was largely American which also provided the safety of an American nuclear umbrella.
A corrosion in NATO’s credibility would lead to much greater influence of Russia and China with European powers like the UK, France and Germany ramping up their military capabilities.
