North America Observation | Trump Again Mentions Considering "Withdrawing from NATO" as US and European Alliances Show New Rifts

Local time April 1st, U.S. President Trump, when discussing the Iran conflict, once again pointed the finger at NATO. He stated that the U.S. will “withdraw from Iran very soon,” but expressed “extreme dissatisfaction” with NATO allies’ stances on Middle East issues, and claimed he is “absolutely considering” letting the U.S. leave this transatlantic military alliance. Almost at the same time, NATO announced that Secretary General Rutte will visit the U.S. next week and meet with Trump.

By directly linking the Iran battlefield to NATO’s future, Trump has pushed the transatlantic relationship to another sensitive point: on one hand, the U.S. and Europe’s disagreements on the Iran issue are being made public; on the other, the U.S. is again raising the long-considered but unimaginable topic of “withdrawing from NATO.” Around Trump’s latest remarks, a deeper issue has once again come to the surface—whether the structural contradictions between the U.S. and NATO are moving into a new stage.

△ NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte (file photo)

Can you withdraw just because you want to?

From the relevant treaty text, NATO member states are not unable to withdraw. Under Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty, any member state may officially leave the organization one year after sending a notice of withdrawal to the U.S. government.

But the issue is that the U.S.’s institutional arrangements are far more complex than the treaty text itself. At the end of 2023, the U.S. Congress added a clause to the National Defense Authorization Act, explicitly stipulating that the President may not unilaterally withdraw from NATO unless a two-thirds majority of the Senate approves it, or Congress passes special legislation to approve it.

This means that even if the President expresses a political will to withdraw, starting the actual withdrawal process still requires congressional support, which is not easy in the realities of U.S. politics.

However, legal constraints do not mean there is no room to maneuver. Security policy experts generally believe that even without formally withdrawing, the President can change the U.S. role in NATO by reducing troop deployments, weakening military cooperation, or lowering political commitments. As some analyses point out, what is truly worth watching may not be whether the U.S. immediately formally withdraws from the treaty, but whether, even while staying inside the alliance, the White House may weaken NATO’s deterrence in advance by continuously creating uncertainty.

△ Trump threatens to withdraw from NATO, intensifying tensions among allies

The contradiction has long existed

In fact, the tense relationship between the U.S. and NATO did not begin today.

In Trump’s political narrative, NATO has long been portrayed as a security arrangement in which “the U.S. bears too much cost, and Europe invests too little.” During his first term, he repeatedly criticized European allies for spending too little on defense and threatened that if member states did not meet defense spending targets, the U.S. might not fulfill its defense obligations.

Entering this term, such friction has not eased; instead, it has continued to stack up amid a new geopolitical backdrop. On one hand, the U.S. demands that Europe take on more defense responsibilities; on the other, it hopes that NATO can play a more active role under U.S. leadership on issues such as the Iran war, the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, and broader global security concerns. But Europe does not see it that way. On April 1, the French government publicly emphasized that NATO’s function is to maintain security in the Europe—Atlantic region, not to endorse offensive missions toward the direction of the Strait of Hormuz, and it argued that the relevant crises should be addressed through the framework of the United Nations and diplomatic channels.

Even more noteworthy is that this divergence is no longer merely a dispute between Trump and European allies; it has begun to extend into a reassessment within the U.S. government of NATO’s positioning. On April 1, U.S. Secretary of State Rubio stated that after the Iran war ends, the U.S. may need to “reassess” its relationship with NATO allies, precisely because Europe is unwilling to provide more adequate support to the U.S. in this war. The day before that, the Pentagon also sent a highly symbolic signal. When asked about NATO’s Article 5—the alliance’s most core “collective defense” commitment—Defense Secretary Hegseth did not directly reaffirm the principle, but said that the relevant decision depends on Trump himself. For Europe, this kind of statement means that U.S. doubt about NATO is escalating from complaints that allies do not shoulder enough burden to doubts about the alliance’s core political commitment itself.

△ NATO (file photo)

Spillover effects continue

The tension between the U.S. and NATO will obviously not stop at disputes within the alliance; it is spreading outward to multiple aspects of the regional situation, reshaping the U.S.’s strategic position on two major fronts.

The most direct impact is first felt on the current Middle East battlefield. Disagreements inside NATO mean that Europe is more inclined to view the Iran issue as a crisis that should not be taken over by NATO as a whole. In such a situation, when dealing with the Middle East situation in the future, the U.S. is likely to rely more on bilateral cooperation, ad hoc coalitions, or targeted military actions, rather than carrying out unified mobilization through the NATO framework.

But the more far-reaching shock is still in Europe. Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, NATO has been seen as the core of Europe’s security system. If the U.S. begins to waver politically in its commitment— even without formally withdrawing—it could still weaken the alliance’s deterrence, forcing Europe to reassess its security foundation.

In fact, discussions within Europe have already begun to more frequently focus on a “more Europeanized NATO,” meaning that Europe takes on more defense responsibilities to respond to potential future strategic contraction by the U.S. After Finland’s President Stubb made a phone call with Trump on April 1, he also spoke publicly about it, saying that a “more Europeanized NATO” is taking shape.

This means that the tension in the U.S.-Europe alliance not only affects this Iran war, but may also affect the entire European security architecture behind the Russia-Ukraine battlefield.

△ Trump brings up withdrawing from NATO again, threatening the relationship with Europe that is growing increasingly tense, and posing a threat to NATO as an organization

Rutte visits the U.S.: the alliance reaches a new crossroads

At this sensitive moment, NATO Secretary General Rutte is about to visit the U.S. Although NATO officials said the visit was originally a long-standing arrangement, it is clear that its political significance is completely different given the current situation.

The most core task of Rutte’s visit to the U.S. is, first of all, to do its best to stabilize the U.S.’s basic commitments to NATO, and prevent “withdrawing from NATO” from evolving from a political threat into institutional weakening; second, to keep minimal coordination with the U.S. on Iran issues, while not letting NATO as a whole be dragged into a war that most European countries do not want to bear; third, without publicly tearing the alliance apart, to respond to Trump’s long-standing demands that “Europe take on more responsibility,” and to reset the internal responsibilities and rights within NATO for its future.

Judging by the next developments, the most likely scenario may not be that the U.S. immediately withdraws from NATO, but rather a more complex—and more dangerous—situation: on one hand, the U.S. is still inside NATO in name, but its commitments are more conditional, transactional, and uncertain; on the other hand, Europe accelerates defense spending and security autonomy, yet for a time cannot fully replace the U.S.

In the longer term, the current dispute in fact reflects an increasingly clear issue within NATO itself: in a more multipolar international environment, is the U.S. willing to continue bearing the security leadership role that was formed during the Cold War, and is Europe prepared to take on greater responsibilities within this system?

Trump’s latest statements about “withdrawing from NATO” once again remind people that the transatlantic alliance is entering a new stage. In this stage, the relationship between the U.S. and NATO may be shifting from a fight over “who leads the alliance” to a test of “how much strategic consensus remains within the alliance.”

(CCTV reporter Wu Weihong)

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