The transatlantic alliance has weathered yet another threat of withdrawal from U.S. President Donald Trump.
This time, however, the response from Europe has shifted. As European allies shoulder a greater share of NATO’s burden, several have pushed back against Washington’s pressure to support its war in Iran.
Spain rejected the use of its military bases or airspace for any activity related to the conflict. Poland refused to relocate any of its Patriot missile batteries. French President Emmanuel Macron openly criticized the way the U.S.-Israel war was being conducted, reprimanding Trump for his inconsistency and inflammatory rhetoric. Even Italy’s right-wing government — often seen as one of Washington’s closest partners — rebuffed a request to use its airbase in Sicily for U.S. planes carrying weapons to target Iran.
“This is the kind of action that is called for in this sort of situation,” argued Ville Sinkkonen, head of the Center of U.S. Politics and Power at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. “It is in our interest to articulate to the United States that what they are doing is actually detrimental to our economic and security interests.”
Despite a ceasefire, the fallout from the U.S.-Israel war with Iran is being felt across Europe, which remains particularly exposed to the economic shock. Gas prices have surged by as much as 66% since the start of the conflict in late February.
“It's fine to speak in diplomatic terms and try to convince Trump, but there also have to be red lines,” Sinkkonen said. “In situations such as the Greenland one, where the sovereignty of a NATO member is potentially threatened, Europe has to be willing to stand up to this administration.”
What comes next for the alliance is uncertain. But analysts, EU policymakers and NATO officials broadly see two paths: a continuation of the current, strained status quo or, less likely, a formal U.S. withdrawal from the 70-year-old alliance.
The issue with the first scenario is that Trump’s repeated threats are already damaging the alliance from within. Article 5, NATO’s mutual defense clause, relies heavily on the credibility of the U.S. commitment to protect its allies.
“Publicly discussing differences within the Alliance effectively weakens our capacity for strategic deterrence against our potential enemies, starting with Putin’s Russia,” said MEP Nicolás Pascual de la Parte (EPP, ES), a former Spanish ambassador to NATO from 2017 to 2018.
Nevertheless, the MEP argued that European leaders should focus on the long term rather than on Trump’s immediate rhetorical threats, which he believes are beginning to lose their impact.
NATO is not breaking up yet
A full U.S. withdrawal from NATO would be legally challenging, requiring the backing of at least two-thirds of the U.S. Congress. However, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte dismissed such concerns over an outright break-up during a visit to Washington this week. Rutte met with Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“I see a true partnership on the transatlantic horizon,” he told the audience at an event organized by the Ronald Reagan Institute, while acknowledging that the alliance is not “whistling past the graveyard.”
The former Dutch prime minister said NATO is undergoing a period of “profound change,” with shifts that “are often only fully appreciated with the benefit of time.” And the current transition period, Rutte said, could be at times “precarious,” as the war in Iran has demonstrated.
Rutte highlighted increased burden-sharing by European allies, pointing to their commitments in providing bases, logistics and overflight permissions related to the war in Iran, as well as efforts to secure the Strait of Hormuz through a U.K.-led initiative involving more than 40 countries. “This is evidence of a mindset shift...NATO is growing stronger,” he said.
Yet not even Rutte’s “daddy diplomacy,” on full display in Washington, managed to soften Trump’s rhetoric. In recent weeks, Trump has described the alliance as a “paper tiger,” and labeled European allies “cowards" for failing to back his war in the Middle East.
Following the Trump–Rutte meeting in Washington, the president revived concerns about his desire to seize Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory that he threatened to take by force earlier in the year before backing down. “NATO wasn’t there when we needed them, and they won’t be there if we need them again. Remember Greenland, that big, poorly run piece of ice,” he wrote on Truth Social in capital letters in a post the White House reposted on X.
Despite Trump’s barking, Federico Santopinto, head of the NATO program at the Paris-based Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégique, doesn’t believe Washington intends to abandon the alliance.
“They want to maintain a strategic position and continue playing a leadership role from behind,” Santopinto said. Reflecting on the Trump administration's National Security Strategy, he added, Europeans are now expected to provide most of the troops and conventional defense capabilities for securing the continent, while “the United States will remain in the alliance, providing strategic enablers and playing a less direct role.”
But for now, Sinkkonen said: “The short-term goal is trying to manage Trump."
In the long term, however, the path is clear: NATO — and particularly its European members — will need to scale up their military capabilities. How to best achieve that was meant to be the centerpiece of the agenda in July at NATO’s annual meeting in Ankara, Turkey — but those discussions now risk being overshadowed by the Middle East conflict.
“The next NATO summit was supposed to be about implementing the next phase of the defense spending pledge,” said Giuseppe Spatafora, an analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies. “Instead, the coming months will turn into another period of crisis management.”
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