One of the Democrats evergreen narratives is that President Trump undermined and weakened NATO. This may be another example of spinning the rhetoric and ignoring the facts.
In his inimitable style – of which I am a constant critic – Trump berated NATO members. Critics say he wanted to withdraw the United States from the Alliance. But why?
The central issue for Trump was that NATO members were not meeting their individual commitments to fund NATO – leaving the United States to pay more than its fair share. (I guess NATO was using the United Nations funding philosophy.)
That is not a new issue. Virtually every modern-day President had called on the member-nations to meet their commitments. While they relied on a “pretty please” approach – that repeatedly failed to get results — Trump complained openly and loudly. His bellicose language and perceived threats were not intended to weaken NATO – or really withdraw America – but to get the member-nations to ante up. IN fact, it was a call to strengthen NATO.
Even the Secretary General of NATO publicly agreed with Trump that the members had to increase their financial contributions to meet their obligations – and the challenges of an increasingly hostile world environment.
It worked. The member-nations increased their financial contributions. This left NATO stronger. Not weaker. And once that was accomplished, Trump stopped bad-mouthing the Alliance. He had done what his predecessors had tried to do – but failed.
Trump approved the addition of Montenegro to NATO – much to the chagrin of Vladimir Putin. The Russian despot was apoplectic over the addition of more nations to NATO. It was thwarting his maniacal dream of taking back the old captive nations that were once part of the Soviet Union of his dreams.
Then there was oil.
Trump not only railed against NATO’s dependency on Russian oil, but he also stopped the certification of the second Nord Stream Pipeline to Germany. Trump argued that NATO’s dependency on Russian oil weakened NATO. He offered to work on the infrastructure that would allow the United States to start supplying oil and gas to Europe – based on Trump’s efforts to make America oil independent and an exporter nation. In 2019, the United States became both oil independent and an exporter nation.
Reducing NATO-nations dependence on Russian oil would have had a significant impact on the Alliance’s response to Putin’s dirty little war. NATO would have been stronger.
Unfortunately, President Biden had different ideas. He cut American oil production – currently and in the future. He ended American oil independence. He reversed Trump and approved the Nord Steam Pipeline. And did nothing to provide the means to sell oil and gas to our European allies. With just those policy reversals, Biden weakened both NATO and the United States – a weakness Putin perceived to be to his advantage.
The only thing that can be said about the Democrats bogus claim that Trump weakened NATO – or wanted to weaken NATO – is that the former President did use belligerent and un-diplomatic language to get the job done. And to the left – especially the pin-stripe pants crowd – protocol is more important than results. And to the left-leaning news media, propaganda attacks on Trump are more important than honest journalism.
The argument that Trump weakened NATO is simply untrue. Quite the opposite.
So, there ‘tis.