- Congress has passed a sweeping law that could spell trouble for Trump if he wins in 2024.
- Lawmakers included a provision in the $886 billion Pentagon funding bill that makes it all but impossible to leave NATO.
- Trump has not said he would withdraw the US from NATO, but there are fears he could do so.
A brief provision in the massive $886 billion bill funding the Pentagon will likely kill former President Donald Trump or any potential future president’s ambitions to withdraw the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Sens. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, and Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, teamed up to muscle their bill — which would require an act of Congress or Senate approval to leave NATO — into what is often deemed a must-pass bill that funds servicemembers and outlines national security priorities. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the legislation into law. The Senate passed the overall legislation 87 to 13. The House passed it on Friday on a 310-118 vote.
“The Senate’s vote today to pass my bipartisan bill to prevent any U.S. President from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO reaffirms U.S. support for this crucial alliance that is foundational for our national security,” Kaine said in a statement after the Pentagon funding bill passed the Senate. “It also sends a strong message to authoritarians around the world that the free world remains united.”
Kaine and Rubio failed to pass their bill when Trump was in the White House.
Trump is not mentioned directly in the provision. He has also not explicitly promised to withdraw from what was originally a Cold War-era alliance. Nonetheless, there are persistent fears that if Trump wins the 2024 presidential election, he will withdraw the US from NATO. As The New York Times pointed out recently, Trump’s campaign website does include this vague sentence, “We have to finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally re-evaluating NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission.”
A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the provision.
The former president has been harshly critical of NATO for decades. In a 2000 book, Trump wrote that pulling back from the alliance “would save this country millions of dollars annually. The cost of stationing NATO troops in Europe is enormous. And these are clearly funds that can be put to better use.”
As president, he harangued NATO members for not spending enough on their defense, pushing to double the 2% of GDP spending target to a point that not even the US had met.
Trump also unnerved some NATO members by questioning the collective defense provision that is at the core of the alliance. Article 5 has only been invoked once in NATO’s 74-year history: after the September 11th attacks. In an interview with then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Trump questioned why the US would want to defend Montenegro, which joined NATO in 2019.
“I understand what you’re saying. I’ve asked the same question,” Trump told Carlson, who had asked about the collective defense requirement. “Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people. They have very aggressive people. They may get aggressive and congratulations, you’re in World War III, now I understand that. But that’s the way it was set up.”
It’s not entirely clear if Trump or any president could unilaterally pull the nation out of NATO even if the provision didn’t pass. The US Consitution requires presidents to seek Senate approval for treaties, but there are disagreements on whether Senate approval is needed to end a treaty. As the Times pointed out, courts have previously tried to avoid settling such disputes.
Under the provision, a president would be required to notify key committees in both the House and Senate no later than 180 days before deliberating whether to “suspend, terminate, denounce, or withdraw” from NATO. If a president pressed forward, a withdrawal would require an act of Congress or 2/3rds of the senators present to approve of such an action.
Unless there is a dramatic change in US politics, it’s hard to see any leader ever crossing that bar.
