Trump plays the bad cop for NATO
Agreements are built on exchange. You give a widget-seller $5, you get a widget. You spend two per cent of your nation’s GDP on defence, you receive the shelter of the United States military. Don’t spend? Don’t expect to receive.
So goes the thinking of Donald Trump, former and likely future president of the United States. Speaking to a crowd in South Carolina two weekends ago, he hinted that the United States wouldn’t come to the rescue of certain unnamed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members who aren’t spending two per cent of GDP on their militaries should they fall under attack.
Specifically, Trump recalled a supposed conversation that took place behind closed NATO doors during his presidency: “I said, ‘Everybody’s going to pay.’ They said, ‘Well if we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ They couldn’t believe the answer.”
He continued: “One of the presidents of a big country stood up, said, ‘Well sir, uh, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’ I said, ‘You didn’t pay, you’re delinquent?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ Let’s say that happened. ‘No, I would not protect you, in fact I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want . ... You don’t pay your bills, you get no protection, it’s very simple.”
Trump went on to tell the crowd that he didn’t expect that delinquents would ever meet their funding commitments if he told them that protection was unconditionally guaranteed. This wasn’t an invitation to Russia, as it’s been famed. Taken literally, the whole thing was a threat. Taken less literally, it was a fear-of-god negotiating tactic. Either way, a brash way of doing diplomacy.
The anecdote has swelled into its own news cycle, but the story isn’t new. Trump told it back in 2022, and it appears to be a tale of his firing of a warning shot at a 2018 NATO summit during which he also threatened to pull the U.S. from the pact. Trump’s disdain for free-riders has been open and loud for many years now.
But no matter how fresh the warning, he’s got a point: mutual defence requires mutual commitment. The treaty text agreed to by NATO states, specifically Article 5, says that an attack against one is considered an attack against all. But before that, in Article 3, it stipulates that each member “will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.”
Further clarity came in 2006, when NATO agreed to a military spending floor or two per cent of GDP. This was reaffirmed in 2014, as members anxiously examined their weak numbers in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
It’s an agreement of existential importance, and the U.S. shouldn’t whimsically waltz in and out of it, but neither should member states chronically refuse to honour their end of the deal.
Still, a number of well-to-do nations have allowed their forces to wilt, indicating their total disregard for sustaining the defence pact on which their security relies. Canada only spends 1.4 per cent of its GDP on its military (the sixth-lowest spender in the alliance), and we’re not the only freeloaders out there. France (1.9), the Netherlands (1.7), Denmark (1.7), Germany (1.6), Italy (1.5) and Turkey (1.3) are some other noteworthy examples. Only one-third of NATO is at or above target. It’s no wonder the big spenders are losing patience.
Some will say Trump’s rhetoric is dangerous, but you know what’s more dangerous? The abysmal state of these militaries. The deteriorating equipment. The declining firepower.
What’s astonishing is that these same countries saw Russia accumulating thousands of troops near the Ukraine border prior to invasion in 2022 (Germany actually blocked NATO supply shipments that would have helped Ukraine ready for war); they saw the war kick off; fast-forward to this year, and they saw a good chunk of northern Europe’s GPS systems knocked offline last month. Military spending is a hard sell, even as war brews.
Vladimir Putin’s war has been a wake-up call to a few NATO members (namely Poland and the Baltics), but many are still sleepwalking. Canada is a big offender, having announced a $1-billion cut to the defence budget last September. Overall, total defence spending is at $29 billion — about six partly-completed pipelines, or just under a decade’s worth of electric battery factory subsidies. Spending is often easy for this government, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has privately told NATO that Canada will never meet its target. Prime minister hopeful Pierre Poilievre was only a little bit more warm on the issue, telling reporters last week that he’d “work toward” meeting the target.
This very transparently sends the message that, no matter what spending commitments we made under NATO, we believe the U.S. is responsible for our safety no matter what. It’s entitled and naive.
The U.S. is big, rich and strong, but it’s not infinite. It shouldn’t take a bombastic threat/negotiation tactic by a president-hopeful to price bare minimum NATO spending into the budget, but if that’s what it takes, so be it. Member states should be expected to participate in their own survival, and the good cop routine hasn’t worked.
“I hear that they like Obama better,” Trump told the South Carolina crowd. “They should like Obama better, you know why? Because he didn’t ask for anything. We were like the stupid country of the world, and we’re not going to be the stupid country of the world any longer.”
Now, we’re getting the bad cop routine. It’s not fun, but it’s what countries that sit at the kids’ table deserve. Better to deal with it now than to wait for yet another war.
"IT WAS A FEAR-OF-GOD NEGOTIATING TACTIC.