U.S. President Donald Trump has told The Telegraph that he is strongly considering pulling the United States out of NATO after it failed to join his war on Iran.
In an interview with the British daily, Trump labeled the alliance a “paper tiger.”
Asked if he would reconsider the U.S.’ membership in the alliance after the conflict, Trump said: “Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration. I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way,” he said.
Trump has been criticizing Washington’s allies who have been unwilling to do more to support the U.S. war effort against Iran.
“Beyond not being there, it was actually hard to believe. And I didn’t do a big sale. I just said, ‘Hey,’ you know, I didn’t insist too much. I just think it should be automatic,” he told the daily.
“We’ve been there automatically, including Ukraine. Ukraine wasn’t our problem. It was a test, and we were there for them, and we would always have been there for them. They weren’t there for us,” Trump said.
The U.S president also rebuked the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for refusing to get involved in the war against Iran, suggesting the Royal Navy was not up for the task.
“You don’t even have a navy. You’re too old and had aircraft carriers that didn’t work,” he said, referring to the state of Britain’s fleet of warships.
Speaking on Fox News on March 31 hours before Trump’s interview, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the U.S. "is going to have to reexamine" its relationship with NATO once the war against Iran has concluded.
"I think there's no doubt, unfortunately, after this conflict is concluded, we are going to have to reexamine that relationship. We're going to have to reexamine the value of NATO in that alliance for our country," Rubio said.
The top U.S. diplomat said he had been "one of the strongest defenders of NATO" while he was in the U.S. Senate because he "found great value in it."
Much of that value was in having military bases in Europe that allowed the U.S. military "to project power into different parts of the world," Rubio said.
"If now we have reached a point where the NATO alliance means that we can't use those bases, that in fact we can no longer use those bases to defend America's interests, then NATO is a one-way street," he added.
Rubio went further, saying that while Washington was not asking NATO allies to conduct airstrikes as part of the war against Iran, "when we need them to allow us to use their military bases, their answer is 'No?' Then why are we in NATO? You have to ask that question."
Trump told The Telegraph he was “glad” Rubio made the comments.
Starmer yesterday called NATO "the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen.”
"It has kept us safe for many decades, and we are fully committed to NATO," Starmer told a press conference after Trump lashed out at the alliance.
