NATO is a paper tiger, and withdrawing the United States from the alliance after the Iran war is no longer something that needs to be reconsidered, says President Donald Trump of the United States in an exclusive interview with The Telegraph’s Washington correspondent Connor Stringer.
This is the strongest sign to date that the White House no longer regards Europe as a reliable defence partner, after allies rejected Trump’s demand that they send warships to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
“I have never let myself be influenced by NATO. I have always known that they were a paper tiger, and by the way Putin knows that too,” Trump says in the interview.
The American president sees an asymmetry between the United States’ engagement in Ukraine and the Europeans’ lack of such engagement in the Middle East:
“Apart from the fact that they were not there, it was actually hard to believe. And I did not make a big thing of it. I simply said: ‘Hey!’ I did not insist too strongly. I just think the response ought to have come automatically.”
“We have been there automatically, including in Ukraine. Ukraine was not our problem. It was a test, and we were there for them. We would always be there for the Europeans. But they did not show up for us.”
Trump mocks the military capacity that Britain, traditionally the United States’ closest ally, has today:
“You do not even have a navy. Your vessels are too old, and you have aircraft carriers that do not work,” he said, referring to the condition of Britain’s fleet of warships.
When asked whether the British Prime Minister ought to spend more on defence, Trump added: “I’m not going to tell him what he should do. He can do whatever he wants. It does not matter. All Starmer wants is expensive wind turbines that drive your energy prices through the roof.”
The American Secretary of State is also considering whether the time has come to leave NATO:
In an interview with Fox News a few hours before the interview with Trump, Rubio said that the United States would have to “reconsider” its NATO membership when the war in Iran was over.
“I do not think there is any doubt that we will unfortunately, after this conflict is concluded, have to reconsider that relationship.”
Trump has confronted NATO before, without withdrawing the United States from the alliance, according to himself in order to get the other countries to invest more in their own defence. The question is whether he wishes to achieve something similar now, or whether this time it is goodbye.