WASHINGTON — President Trump said Wednesday that he’s “absolutely” considering withdrawing the United States from the NATO military alliance — and that “I’ll be discussing my disgust with NATO” during a primetime address about the Iran war.
“Oh, absolutely without question. Wouldn’t you do that if you were me?” Trump told Reuters reporter Steve Holland in an interview, when asked if he was weighing leaving the transatlantic alliance.
Trump made the remark after telling The Telegraph that NATO’s future is “beyond reconsideration” after European leaders barred US use of military bases for the monthlong Iran conflict and balked at US requests for naval support to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
President Donald Trump speaks during the signing ceremony for an executive order on mail ballots, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 31, 2026. REUTERS
Smoke rises from the site of a strike in Tehran, Iran, on April 1, 2026. AFP via Getty Images“I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin knows that too, by the way,” he said.
NATO for generations has been a cornerstone of US foreign policy, committing the US, Canada and most major nations in Europe to collective defense against external threats.
In both of his terms, Trump pressured fellow NATO members to increase military spending. Last year, he shifted the responsibility of footing the bill for US weapons sent to Ukraine — which is not a NATO member — onto the allies so that Kyiv could continue resisting Russian advances.
Withdrawing the US from NATO would face significant bipartisan blowback, but unilateral presidential withdrawal from treaties has become the norm, and Trump has axed others, including pacts on climate change and arms control.
Former President Joe Biden in 2023 signed legislation coauthored by then-Sen. Marco Rubio — now Trump’s secretary of state — that bars any president from withdrawing from NATO without congressional consent. It’s conceivable Trump would argue the prohibition unconstitutionally restricts his ability to lead the military and conduct diplomacy — a case his team has made against other legislation in the past.
The Senate ratified the treaty establishing NATO in 1949 at the start of the Cold War, and the alliance has endured as a counter to Moscow’s post-Soviet reassertion of influence in Eastern Europe.
Members of NATO include the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Poland and Turkey. The alliance expanded to Russia’s frontier with the addition of Poland in 1999 and the three Baltic nations — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — in 2004.
President Trump will speak tonight at 9 p.m. ET. REUTERSUnder former President Joe Biden, long-neutral Finland and Sweden joined the group in response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
NATO allies’ coolness to the Iran conflict has enraged Trump.
Spain barred US use of the jointly run Rota naval and Morón air bases last month and on Monday closed its airspace to American warplanes.
The UK ” took far too much time” to allow US forces to use air bases and the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean, Trump said last month.
Italy on Tuesday denied US military jets permission to land at its Sigonella air base in Sicily.
The German government chided Trump for attacking Iran without consulting NATO partners and French President Emmanuel Macron declared, “France will never take part in operations to open or liberate the Strait of Hormuz.”
