President Donald Trump said that NATO is a “paper tiger” and he was considering pulling the US out of the Cold War-era alliance. This week, multiple NATO states declared that the US could not use their airspace for attacks on Iran.
“I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way,” the President said in an interview with The Telegraph on Wednesday. He added that he was seriously considering leaving NATO.
NATO was created after WWII to prevent the USSR from further expanding into Europe. After the fall of the USSR, NATO expanded eastward into several former members of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. After the bloc attempted to add Ukraine as a member, Russia invaded and demanded that Kiev agree to neutrality.
The bloc has used Ukraine as a proxy force to weaken Russia.
While Trump has floated the idea of exiting NATO throughout his political career, he has been irked by the bloc’s response to the war against Iran. Several NATO countries have refused to assist the US and Israel in the conflict, and others have barred US warplanes from their airspace.
“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.” The President continued in his remarks to The Telegraph. “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.”
On Monday, the Spanish Defense Minister blasted the US and Israeli war against Iran as “profoundly” illegal and unjust, adding that American warplanes conducting operations in the Middle East would be barred from Spanish airspace.
“We don’t authorize either the use of military bases or the use of airspace for actions related to the war in Iran,” Defense Minister Margarita Robles explained.
In his interview with the British outlet, Trump singled out the UK for criticism. “[The UK] doesn’t even have a navy. You’re too old and had aircraft carriers that didn’t work,” he said, “I’m not going to tell [UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer] what to do. He can do whatever he wants. It doesn’t matter. All Starmer wants is costly windmills that are driving your energy prices through the roof.”
