April 2 (UPI) — Two Republican members of the U.S. Senate have broken with President Donald Trump on his threat to leave NATO because it would fulfill the “greatest dreams” of Russia and China.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., on Tuesday joined Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in opposing Trump’s latest comments about possibly leaving the post-World War II alliance that was formed as a bulwark against fears of Russian aggression in Europe.
Trump has long aired grievances about NATO — starting during his first term as president — but has ratcheted up his complaints about the alliance since the United States and Israel started the now month-old war in Iran because none of its members have assisted with the conflict.
In a joint statement with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., with whom he co-chairs the Senate NATO Observer Group, Tillis pointed to the importance of the alliance to U.S. economic and military security.
“NATO is the strongest and most successful military alliance in history,” Tillis and Shaheen said in the statement. “It promotes economic stability and protects economic stability and protests our most important trading relationships.”
“Our allies, year after year, have stepped up decisively in the face of mounting threats,” they said, noting that “NATO stood by American when we were under attack and came to our aid after the September 11th attacks. Their soldiers fought and died alongside our troops in Afghanistan.”
Trump in recent days has said in interviews that he is “absolutely without question” thinking about pulling the United States out of NATO because he has never been “swayed” by the group, The Guardian reported.
At issue is the lack of involvement by NATO partners in the Iran war, which the Trump administration launched with Israel without the alliance’s consultation, or an attempt to invoke Article 5 of the NATO agreement, which calls other members to help defend one that has been attacked.
French President Emmanuel Macron called Trump out for his seemingly random daily comments, suggesting that “when you want to be serious you don’t say every day the opposite of what you said the day before,” The BBC reported.
Macron noted that the United States and Israel decided “by themselves” to launch the war in Iran and “then lament that they are alone in an operation they decided on alone. It’s not our operation.”
“Alliances like NATO are valuable because of what is unspoken — meaning the trust behind them,” Macron said, and that while partners sign agreements and show up when things go wrong, the “chatter” and disrespect is not good for the alliance.
In their statement, Tillis and Shaheen said that any “president that contemplates attempting to withdraw from NATO is not only fulfilling Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping’s greatest dreams but would be undermining America’s own national security interests.”
Under a 2024 law drafted by then-Sen. Marco Rubio, Trump cannot unilaterally pull the country out of NATO with authorization from Congress beforehand.
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