President Donald Trump has said he is strongly considering pulling the US out of NATO, ratcheting up his criticism of European allies and exposing a wider rift in the transatlantic alliance — this time over America’s war alongside Israel against Iran.
While Trump’s talk of a possible NATO pullout dates back years, the comments to Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, published Wednesday, were among the clearest and most disparaging yet — suggesting the fracture has deepened perhaps to a point of no return.
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.”
President Donald Trump has said he is strongly considering pulling the US out of NATO, ratcheting up his criticism of European allies and exposing a wider rift in the transatlantic alliance — this time over America’s war alongside Israel against Iran.
While Trump’s talk of a possible NATO pullout dates back years, the comments to Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, published Wednesday, were among the clearest and most disparaging yet — suggesting the fracture has deepened perhaps to a point of no return.
Asked whether he would reconsider U.S. 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.”
“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.
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. He’s called his NATO allies “cowards,” pulling at any rhetorical lever he can to get help with the fallout of a war that no ally was consulted on or asked to take part in.
For years, Trump has berated America’s European allies, urging them to assume greater responsibility for their own security and spend more on defense. He has argued that the US has done more for them than the other way around.
