President Donald Trump is going on offense against America’s partners in NATO.
The Commander in Chief, “stung by allies who haven’t been keen to fight another war in the Middle East,” as The Daily Beast reports, is pulling military assets vital to Europe’s protection — and vital to U.S. interests — out of Europe. Among them, a significant number of bombers, warships, fighter jets, refueling aircraft, submarines, destroyers, and roughly 5,000 troops.
The Daily Beast calls the moves “Snubbed Trump’s Petty Revenge Plot.”
While it would take an act of Congress to withdraw from NATO itself, withdrawing military assets is entirely up to the discretion of the Commander in Chief and the Secretary of Defense.
The president has become “incensed by European allies’ refusal to back his war in Iran, Der Spiegel reported,” The Daily Beast noted.
Trump, a strong critic of NATO for years, has, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, become “increasingly critical” of NATO, its refusal to assist U.S. efforts in the Iran war, and what he sees as NATO member countries’ refusal to spend sufficiently on their militaries and defense.
“Key members such as Spain and Italy incensed the president, 79, by closing their airspace and air bases to U.S. military aircraft taking part in the bombardment of Iran,” The Daily Beast noted. “That followed tension created by Trump’s repeated musings about seizing control of Greenland, which belongs to NATO member Denmark.”
Secretary Rubio told Fox News that the “problem with NATO, unfortunately—and I’ve been a supporter of NATO throughout my career in the Senate—and one of the reasons I supported NATO is it gave us basing rights.”
He explained that those rights gave the U.S. a “contingency” for when flying to areas like the Middle East. European bases can offer U.S. forces staging and refueling areas.
“And so, when you have NATO partners denying you the use of those bases, when the primary reason that NATO is good for America is now being denied to us by Spain, as an example, then what’s the purpose of the alliance?” Rubio asked.
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