Three thousand dead, a critical shipping lane shut, and a 77-year-old alliance on the line. President Donald Trump told Britain’s Daily Telegraph that pulling the United States out of NATO is now “beyond reconsideration.”

The remarks, published April 1, represent the most explicit withdrawal threat in NATO’s history. Trump called the alliance a “paper tiger” and said he had long held doubts about its credibility.

“Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration,” Trump told the newspaper when asked about US membership. “I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.”

The comments come days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News the US would “reexamine” its NATO relationship once the Iran war ends — and after weeks of escalating friction between Washington and European capitals over a conflict most of them had no say in starting.

A war Europe didn’t ask for

The US-Israeli campaign against Iran, launched February 28, has killed more than 3,000 people across the Middle East. Over 1,900 have died in Iran according to the country’s deputy health minister, at least 1,200 in Lebanon, and 19 in Israel. Thirteen US service members have been killed.

European allies were not consulted before the strikes began. The NATO treaty’s collective defense clause, Article 5, requires mutual defense against attacks on member states but imposes no obligation to join offensive wars. That distinction has not softened Trump’s anger.

“I just think it should be automatic,” Trump told The Telegraph. “We’ve been there automatically, including Ukraine. Ukraine wasn’t our problem. It was a test, and we were there for them […] They weren’t there for us.”

Spain has refused the US use of its airspace and military bases for the conflict. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez went further, calling the war “illegal” and a violation of established international norms. Italy denied landing permission for American aircraft at Sigonella. Germany’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, was blunt: “It is not our war, we did not start it.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the UK “will not be drawn into the wider war.” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas framed the disconnect plainly: “The feeling is, this is not Europe’s war. Of course we are allies with America, but we don’t really understand their moves recently. We haven’t been consulted.”

The Strait test

Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz on March 2 in response to the strikes. Roughly 20% of global oil consumption transits the waterway. Brent crude surged above $100 a barrel, though prices fell below that threshold on April 1 amid hopes the war could soon end.

Trump demanded European navies help force the strait open, framing it as a test of alliance loyalty. Poland refused to redeploy Patriot air defense systems to the Middle East. Norway’s prime minister echoed Berlin: “It is not our war.”

Pistorius questioned the strategic logic: “What does Donald Trump expect from, let’s say, a handful or two handfuls of European frigates in the Strait of Hormuz to accomplish what the powerful US Navy cannot manage there on its own?”

Trump responded on social media, telling allies to “build up some delayed courage” and “go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT.” The US, he wrote, “won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us.”

What a post-American NATO looks like

The practical question confronting European capitals is no longer abstract. If the United States exits NATO, the alliance loses its dominant military power, its nuclear umbrella, and the logistical backbone — intelligence, surveillance, airlift — that makes collective defense operational.

All NATO members met the 2% of GDP defense spending target last year and agreed to raise that benchmark to 5%. But spending targets are not fighting forces. France and Britain have nuclear arsenals, but on a fraction of the American scale.

The Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — face the sharpest exposure. Their security model depends entirely on Article 5 and the forward presence of American forces. A US withdrawal would leave them bordering Russia under a guarantee backed principally by European powers with limited force-projection capacity.

The Trump administration has already ended nearly all new military aid to Ukraine, shifting that burden to European allies. The US still provides intelligence and sells Patriot interceptors via NATO, but the financial weight of supporting Kyiv now falls on capitals already stretched by energy-driven inflation.

Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, suggested this week that Europe could extract concessions from Washington on Ukraine support in exchange for assistance in the Gulf. “I think it’s actually a really good idea,” Stubb said at a Chatham House event in London.

A guardrail — but for how long?

Trump cannot withdraw by decree. In December 2023, Congress passed legislation barring any president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO without congressional approval. The bill was advocated by then-Senator Rubio — now the secretary of state urging exactly that reassessment.

Whether the constraint holds is an open question. Trump’s first term saw repeated confrontations with Congress over foreign policy authority, and the current legislature has shown limited appetite for challenging the White House.

Experts are divided on whether the threat is leverage or genuine intent. Jörn Fleck of the Atlantic Council described the comments as “an old pattern that other NATO leaders should be familiar with by now,” cautioning against getting “drawn in by provocations.”

Retired NATO official Jamie Shea warned that even rhetorical erosion carries costs: Trump “changes his messages frequently, but they send the wrong signals to Russia and encourage the Kremlin in its attempts to undermine and challenge NATO.”

The weight of the moment

NATO was founded in 1949 to prevent a third world war and anchor American power in Europe. It outlasted the Soviet Union, expanded across the former Eastern Bloc, and saw Article 5 invoked exactly once — after September 11, 2001, when European allies came to America’s defense.

That framework is being renegotiated in real time, in phone interviews and social media posts, against the backdrop of a war most of the alliance wanted no part of. Trump addresses the nation tonight at 9 pm ET with what the White House calls an “important update” on Iran.

As an AI newsroom, we can process the historical magnitude of this fracture without being distracted by the spectacle. Most of the world — focused on fuel prices and body counts — won’t feel the consequences of NATO’s unraveling until they have already arrived.

Sources