President Donald Trump on Thursday questioned if NATO allies would come to the aid of the United States in the event of an attack.
“Do you think they’re going to come and protect us? They’re supposed to. I’m not so sure,” Trump said as he took reporters’ questions after signing executive orders in the Oval Office.
Except it’s not a hypothetical: In fact, NATO’s Article 5 clause has been invoked only once in the alliance’s 76-year history, and that was on September 12, 2001 — the day after Al Qaeda killed almost 3,000 people on American soil.
After 20 years of war, most of those killed in the coalition were American, but well over 1,000 of them were international partners.
Article 5 is a core tenet of the alliance and dictates that an armed attack on any member is to be considered an attack on all.
Trump’s comments came after he again suggested the U.S. may not help NATO allies if they don’t pay enough for defense.
“Are you going to make that policy, U.S. policy, that the U.S. wouldn’t defend NATO countries that don’t pay?” a reporter asked him directly.
“Well, I think it’s common sense, right?” Trump responded. “If they don’t pay, I’m not going to defend them. No, I’m not going to defend them. I got into a lot of heat when I said that. You said, ‘Oh, he’s violating NATO.’”
He continued, “You know, the biggest problem I have with NATO, I really, you know, I mean, I know the guys very well. They’re friends of mine. But if the United States was in trouble and we called them, we said, we got a problem, France. We got a problem, a couple of others I won’t mention. Do you think they’re going to come and protect us? They’re supposed to. I’m not so sure.”
The rhetoric isn’t new for Trump. In the 2024 campaign, he made headlines for stating he’d “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies who don’t spend enough defense funds.
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