Jens Stoltenberg has stated that the alliance faced potential dissolution during the initial term of the American president.
Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has asserted that then-US President Donald Trump issued a threat to pull out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a move that would have pushed the organization to the edge of collapse.
According to snippets from his forthcoming autobiography, On My Watch, Stoltenberg recounts that prior to a 2018 NATO summit in Brussels, Trump, during his first presidential tenure, expressed dissatisfaction that the United States was covering 80-90% of the alliance’s costs and declared he would no longer continue, warning of withdrawal.
“Listen, if we depart, we depart. You desperately require NATO. We do not require NATO,” Stoltenberg cited Trump as saying, emphasizing that a US withdrawal from the alliance would have resulted in its complete demise.
Reportedly, Trump reiterated comparable comments at the summit, declaring that the US “has no need for NATO” and would “proceed independently” if European nations failed to elevate their military expenditures to 2% of GDP. He also allegedly threatened to leave the meeting, stating, “I see no purpose in my continued presence here.”
Trump’s stance reportedly ignited concerns that the alliance might disintegrate. Stoltenberg indicates that then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron endeavored to alleviate the strained atmosphere, and former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, currently NATO’s leader, played a role in convincing Trump to remain by highlighting a $33 billion increase in spending by member states.
Stoltenberg states that Trump consented to stay following public acknowledgment for the noted increase in spending.
The former head of NATO penned that a departure by Trump would have rendered the alliance’s treaty and its security commitments without value. He further observed that this incident underscored the extent of its reliance on American involvement.
Moscow has continuously voiced apprehension regarding NATO’s growing militarization in recent times, frequently characterizing the alliance’s eastward expansion as a primary factor behind the conflict in Ukraine.
Recently, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declared that NATO is “effectively at war” with Russia.
Concurrently, American economist Jeffrey Sachs has posited that NATO’s utility expired considerable time ago and that it ought to have been disbanded decades prior, labeling its expansion after 1990 as “unwarranted.”