How 'terrified' Democrats plan to undermine Trump’s ploy to withdraw from NATO

13 February 2024

During his 2020 campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden promised to aggressively support the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) if he won — and warned that NATO might not survive if then-President Donald Trump won a second term.

Four years later, with Biden seeking reelection and Trump moving closer and closer to the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, NATO is the headlines again. Trump, during a campaign rally in South Carolina, said he would encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade NATO countries if they didn't "pay" enough into the alliance.

In an article published on February 13, Politico reporters Joe Gould, Connor O'Brien and Paul McLeary describe Democratic efforts to protect NATO from MAGA attempts to undermine it.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) is among the Democrats who is sounding the alarm.

On February 12, Van Hollen warned, "Everyone should be scared as hell. Anybody who cares about American leadership, anyone who cares about protecting democracy, anybody who wants to take on authoritarians around the world should be scared to death by the fact that Donald Trump is telling us that if he was reelected president, he would throw our NATO allies to Putin."

According to the Politico reporters, pro-NATO Democrats acknowledge that there is only so much they can do if Trump wins in November and sets out to hurt NATO.

"Lawmakers touted defense policy legislation signed into law in December that prevents any president from withdrawing the U.S. from NATO without approval from the Senate or an act of Congress," Gould, O’Brien and McLeary explain. "Yet on Monday, Democrats acknowledged that the guardrail they threw up would have a limited effect on a president who is opposed to the alliance. Trump, for example, could refuse to appoint a U.S. ambassador to NATO headquarters in Brussels, or order U.S. military commanders to dial back exercises with their NATO counterparts."

The reporters add, "He could even refuse to come to a country's aid if it's attacked."

Former Pentagon official Jim Townsend warns that Trump "could just downgrade our participation" in NATO.

Townsend told Politico, "He won't go to summits and the secretary of defense won’t go to defense ministerials. U.S. leadership will drop out and you just won’t see a lot of American faces."

Read Politico's full report at this link.

From Your Site Articles