About formal brunches and intimate dinners, in grand conference rooms and On the Senate floor, Republican lawmakers have used this week’s NATO summit in Washington to reassure visiting European leaders anxious about the prospect of Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Their message, essentially, is that there is no need to worry because Trump isn’t actually going to do all of the things he has said he’s going to do.
Despite Trump’s past threats suggesting otherwise, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), co-chair of the Senate’s bipartisan NATO Observer Group, told an audience on the sidelines of the summit that the former president is not going to withdraw the United States from the alliance. “This is not a real threat,” just blustery campaign rhetoric owed to “the political silly season,” Tillis said. “Let’s just be very clear: This is not something that’s in the cards.”
“There’s not a chance on earth that we’re going to get out of NATO,” Sen said. Roger Wicker (Miss.), the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. When it comes to Trump, Sen. Kevin Cramer (RN.D.) explained that most people “have learned to take him seriously, but not literally.”
The importance of NATO, as a one-time bulwark against the Soviet Union and now against a resurgent Russia, is a rare area of agreement among most Democrats and many Republicans. Yet Democrats say they are unconvinced the GOP will stand up to Trump were he to follow through on his wildest impulses.
A spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign, Karoline Leavitt, did not address a question about Trump’s NATO claims, but said in a statement that his tenure in the White House amounted to “four years of peace and prosperity” while under President Biden and Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, Europe has experienced “death and destruction.”
By law, the United States cannot withdraw from NATO without a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate. Congress adopted that safeguard in December. At the time, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a onetime Trump critic now under consideration to be his running mate, said it was appropriate for the Senate to oversee “whether or not our nation withdraws from NATO.” Lawmakers from both parties reminded the Europeans of that provision this week.
Still, it is widely known that Trump is no great fan of the organization. As president, he routinely questioned its relevance and ostracized many European allies. Beyond threatening to leave the alliance, Trump said in February he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to member countries he views as not spending enough on their own defense.
He has opposed sending military aid to Ukraine as it fights to repel the Kremlin’s invasion — a stance that has helped fuel a broader shift against Kyiv among the Republican Party’s far-right members — and expressed a fondness for Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant on charges he is responsible for war crimes committed during the conflict.
Trump claims he could end the war in a day if re-elected, an outcome that would almost certainly require generous concessions to Moscow.
Others suggest that even if he is serious, such a view is so fringe within the GOP that it won’t matter. Without naming Trump, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made that point Thursday on the Senate floor. “A majority of Americans support a more engaged US foreign policy, and hold favorable views of the NATO alliance, and support lethal assistance to Ukraine,” he said, citing recent polling by the Reagan Institute. “Not a single Republican incumbent” who voted in favor of sending aid to Ukraine “lost their primary,” he noted. “Across the country, voters rejected fringe candidates who peddled isolationism.”
Democrats aren’t buying it. They argue that the number of Republicans in the House and Senate who voted against Ukraine aid proves they can’t be trusted to stand up to the party’s standard-bearer. After Trump and the far right turned against additional US funding for Kyiv, “a majority of Republicans in this chamber voted against this aid,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a speech this week. He called that “a warning of what a Republican-controlled Senate would do” if Trump is elected again. Trump could make a sudden decision on foreign policy, Schumer said, and Republicans will “march in line.”
Trump has done little to permit such concerns, and on Wednesday deflected questions about his NATO and Ukraine rhetoric. During an appearance on Fox News Radio, he extolled his “very good relationship with President Putin.” Of NATO, he said, “they take advantage of us very badly.”
Emerging fractures within the Democratic Party — over concerns about President Biden’s physical and cognitive fitness to serve another four-year term — also have rattled America’s allies.
“There’s so much anxiety right now about the elections,” Cramer, the North Dakota senator, acknowledged. “There is no certainty of which philosophy will govern this country in seven months.”
And so come the assertions of bipartisanship; of the importance of history. And of the shared threat posed by what House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) characterized this week as an interconnected web of adversaries: not just Russia, but also China, Iran and North Korea.
“I call upon my colleagues in both houses … to recommit to this important and vital alliance,” said Wicker, speaking on the Senate floor.
But if such declarations are necessary, those perhaps most aligned with Trump are not offering them, and have engaged little with the NATO summit this week. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), another top contender to be Trump’s running mate, said he has met previously with “a lot of these guys who are in town,” but that he wasn’t participating in any related events.
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), a former chair of the far-right and closely Trump-allied House Freedom Caucus, and serves as a member of the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees, said he hadn’t been “invited” to any NATO-related meetings this week, adding, though, “It’s good to know that they care about what America thinks.”
Both Republicans and Democrats emphasized this week the importance of NATO nations increasing their defense spending, noting that 23 of the alliance’s 32 members now meet its baseline spending target of at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product. Trump and the GOP say the former president deserves credit for that accomplishment. “He was the original disciplinarian of NATO,” Cramer said.
Democrats credit Biden, noting that most of the spending increases happened during his term in office.
Trump’s closest congressional allies — as well as Democrats — however agree that NATO nations would be wise to take more seriously what the prospect of another Trump presidency would mean for the alliance. There will be serious consequences for NATO members who don’t pay their share. Ending the Ukraine war will mean negotiating with Russia. And yes, with Trump in office, Europe will have to do more to fend for itself because the United States needs to focus more on China.
“If you can’t pay up, leave,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.), said Wednesday of the countries that do not contribute the target 2 percent of GDP. Graham, the top Republican on the Senate subcommittee that oversees funding for foreign operations and diplomacy, added: “I’d ask to renegotiate the treaty … We’ll only have a NATO treaty with people who meet their obligations.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that like Schumer, he has no assurances to offer. Trump, he said, “is promising to destroy our alliance structure, to pull up stakes in the world, to abandon Ukraine. That’s the reality.”
“It’s not my job,” he said, “to lie to the Europeans about Donald Trump’s agenda.”
Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.
