Once again, the leading Republican presidential candidate stated he would not honor America's commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance–a statement that feeds uncertainty around the world, not just in Europe–and he's also invited Russia to invade NATO member he feels hasn't lived up to a financial obligation that doesn't exist, a call perking up his buddy Vlad's ears. Donald Trump's long-standing hatred of the defense alliance is clear, and its roots are set in simple manipulation and general ignorance.
Well into his second presidential campaign in 2016, Trump had little to say about NATO, which is, believe it or not, far more than Trump said before his infamous descent down an escalator in June 2015. Despite putting himself out as a potential Reform Party candidate for the 2000 election, Trump hadn't commented on the defense alliance in any manner noteworthy enough to be reported by any news outlet through 2014.
In fact, CBS News notes Trump's only public comment prior to entering the 2016 presidential race seems to have been a 2012 tweet blaming Obama for Israel not being invited to a NATO member meeting in Chicago; Israel is not a NATO member. A September 2015 Politico feature on "Donald Trump's 11 worst foreign policy gaffes" only mentions NATO concerning Ukraine's possible membership.
An April 2014 New York Times opinion page debate on the usefulness of NATO–at the time, one of the most comprehensive American media discussions on the topic–didn't mention Trump or his opinion once. And it wasn't like he was silent on political issues: After Barack Obama mocked Trump at the 2011 Correspondents Dinner (You should watch it; it's two minutes and forty-nine seconds of funny jokes that likely changed the course of world history), Trump would routinely volley insults at the Administration and denigrate the economy and US foreign policies. Trump's ego was hurt, after all, and he needed to lash out, but not once did he disparage NATO or the US involvement in NATO.
The lack of any reporting from any outlet even from, say, People Magazine or TMZ, that such a high-profile personality who was teasing a run for the presidency in early 2014 had questioned US membership in NATO lends support to the theory that Trump didn't give NATO a second thought until he decided to run for president in 2015. And even then, it would be nearly a year before Trump would rant against the organization.
After years of ambivalence about NATO, Donald Trump has not only questioned the US's membership; he's called for the US to withdraw from the group, saying the US is solely supporting the defense alliance while others aren't "paying their way" and taking advantage of the US. On March 26, 2016, Trump told the editorial board of the Washington Post that he didn't believe NATO was needed anymore, saying "the distribution of costs has to change." The next day, he flat-out called NATO "obsolete." A week later at a campaign rally in Racine, Wisconsin, he stated NATO was outdated again, admitting, "I said here's the problem with NATO: it's obsolete. Big statement to make when you don't know that much about it, but I learn quickly."
The Tutor: Paul Manafort
Trump may have been learning quickly from a compromised source: Paul Manafort. In February 2016, Manafort started asking around to get an introduction to Trump to wrangle a position with the campaign, volunteering to work for no salary. Manafort was Trump's type: a flashy, coiffed deal-maker, experienced in US politics, advised foreign campaigns, but had no tight ties to The Swamp. By early March, Manafort was on board, ostensibly to wrangle convention delegates, but all the while "teaching" Trump about European foreign relations. As campaign chair Corey Lewandowski started to fall out of favor with Trump despite being investigated for assaulting a reporter that month, Manafort was there to take over as CEO–still without taking a salary, another likely attractive feature for Trump.
It was like a light switch for Trump. As soon as Manafort joined the campaign, Trump turned his ire toward the alliance. Before Manafort, Trump would've had trouble spelling NATO; with Manafort, Trump turned into a rabid anti-NATO advocate. Through the spring and summer of 2016, Trump denigrated NATO in his various rallies, putting him at odds with many establishment Republicans but energizing his nativist, isolationist Base.
Trump's messaging on why the United States needed to leave NATO evolved over weeks as he gauged what got the biggest applause in his rallies and what got the fewest heckles from people who actually knew what they were talking about. His initial attacks against NATO–that the alliance was "obsolete"–were mocked by virtually everyone outside the most isolationist conservative bubbles given that Russia invaded Crimea just two years before, demonstrating the need for a defensive alliance against the Kremlin. (Among the jabs, one foreign policy pundit called Trump's view on NATO "superficial and childlike.")
Next, Trump tried saying the US was paying the entire cost of the organization's administration, which he then honed down to the US was paying more than its share. The NATO administrative budget was $3.7 billion in 2023, with the US picking up about 16% of that cost. Sixteen percent is hardly a number people get incensed over. He finally settled on the ambiguous, "THEY'RE NOT PAYING THEIR FAIR SHARE" without ever defining what the "fair share" should be.
No surprise: Trump doesn’t understand how finances work
Trump then glommed on to an Obama-era initiative to have all NATO member nations spend a minimum of 2% of their GDP on defense equipment and preparedness. By comparison, the US will spend 3.7% of its 2023 GDP on defense; Luxembourg spends just 0.72%. In 2006, NATO members set a goal of 2% GDP spend on defense within ten years, a pledge quickly forgotten in the wake of the GW Bush-led worldwide recession of 2008. In 2014, the Obama Administration got the members to commit to the goal within a decade, but because of the long-term impact of the pandemic, the ten-year deadline has been eased for smaller member nations trying to recover. Most members have not hit the 2% benchmark, although every one has increased defense spending per the agreement. In 2023, only ten members spent less than 1.5% of GDP on defense; when the agreement was signed, only four members spent more than that.
Trump's message was heard in Moscow. Starting in 2016, as Russian disinformation programs were wreaking havoc on the US election, Putin started amassing troops along the borders of the Baltic states; by December, 200,000 Russian troops were along the border. Sensing Putin's aggression, Obama deployed US Air Force F-22s to Lithuania on a rotating basis; treaties prohibit substantial amounts of NATO troops from being permanently stationed in Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia. The Air Force maintained that rotation with US fighters stationed around Europe through 2018, when fellow NATO member Denmark took over air policing duties for the Baltic states. NATO would not be pushed around, so Putin turned south.
So the timetable: In February 2016, Manafort joins the campaign after working for Russian-backed Ukrainians. In March, Trump starts railing against NATO, questioning US commitment. On June 9th, Junior Trump, Jared Kushner and Paul Manaford meet with representatives of the Kremlin at Trump Tower in New York to "get dirt" on Hillary Clinton; the Trump camp claims it was about adoptions, but adoptions from Russia were never addressed by the campaign or the Trump administration. In July, with Manafort at the helm of the Trump campaign, the Republican Party changes its platform to weaken its support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia in Crimea and the Donbas region. On August 2nd, Manafort gives campaign polling data to sanctioned Russian billionaire Konstantin Kilimnik.
Here is page 4 (which did not post due to space constraints). pic.twitter.com/z1Xi4nr2gq
- Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 11, 2017
Weeks later, news broke that Manafort received more than $12 million from a Russian-backed Ukrainian political party, The Party of Regions, for work during their 2010 election and beyond. It took a few weeks, but the Trump campaign had to cut him loose: Manafort resigned on August 19th, but it didn't matter. The issue was settled in Trump's routine, and like-minded cultists like Stephen Miller would ensure the message got out: NATO was a bunch of welfare queens living large off the backs of hardworking Americans. Should he win the election, Trump–the King of Democracy–would go it alone to defend freedom. Europe and the others? They're on their own.
That is now the position the "Never Admit You're Wrong" Trump is stuck with: no one in NATO is paying the US enough to protect them, so it's in the US interest to leave NATO. Of course, that is an incorrect and absurd position, but it is Trump's and Trump's is it. It was the position one of the few world leaders Trump respects supports, too, because nobody understands Trump like Vlad.