In excerpts from his upcoming memoir On My Watch, Stoltenberg recalls that ahead of a 2018 NATO summit in Brussels, Trump, then in his first term, complained that the US was paying 80-90% of the bloc’s expenses and wasn’t going to do so anymore, threatening to leave.
“Look, if we leave, we leave. You need NATO, desperately. We don’t need NATO,” Stoltenberg quoted Trump as saying, noting that if the US had withdrawn from the bloc, “the alliance would be dead.”
Trump later reportedly made similar remarks during the summit, stating the US “doesn’t need NATO” and would “do our own thing” unless European members increased military spending to 2% of GDP. He also reportedly threatened to walk out, adding, “There’s no reason for me to be here anymore.”
Trump’s attitude reportedly prompted fears that the bloc could fall apart. Stoltenberg says Germany’s then-Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron tried to calm tensions, while former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who now leads NATO, helped persuade Trump to stay by noting that bloc members had increased spending by $33 billion.
Stoltenberg says Trump agreed to remain after being publicly credited for that spending rise.
The former NATO chief wrote that if Trump had walked out, it would’ve made the bloc’s treaty and security guarantees worthless. He also added that the episode highlighted how dependent it was on US participation.
