Trump’s NATO threats expose limits of Congress’s power

by Laura Kelly - 02/20/24 6:00 AM ET

Former President Trump’s menacing rhetoric toward NATO is shining a light on what little power Congress has in protecting America’s commitments to the alliance.

NATO’s supporters say despite strong congressional backing for the alliance, House and Senate lawmakers have little to no power to prevent the president, as commander in chief, from making decisions about the U.S. military, in Europe or elsewhere.

“I’ve gotten presidents out of a lot of treaties,” John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser between 2018 and 2019, told The Hill.

“Efforts to restrict the president’s direction of forces, saying you can’t use funds to withdraw troops from Europe or something like that, flows directly in the face of the Commander-in-chief Clause of the Constitution, that is an invitation to litigation,” he added.

“If somebody like Trump wants to get out, it’s not going to slow him down. It’s better to be making the case to the American people that we should stay in NATO than to try and put up guardrails.”

That reality is unlikely to change despite recently passed legislation requiring a two-thirds approval from the Senate before any withdrawal from NATO, experts say.

And short of that, there are no guardrails that would stop a president from scaling down U.S. troops in the region, holding back from supporting NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense pact, or taking other actions to limit America’s participation in the alliance.

Trump, powering his way toward the Republican presidential nomination, has sparked international alarm with comments this month that he would encourage Russia to attack NATO-member states who have not met their defense spending commitments, and he has long threatened to exit the alliance.

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It’s caused alarm among Republicans who are committed to U.S. military power abroad, but who see little hope for Congress to check the president’s power at home. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he hoped officials around Trump would help maintain a somewhat consistent foreign policy in a second term.

“We go back to our playbook in the prior administration,” he said in a discussion with reporters hosted by The Christian Science Monitor last week. McCaul pointed to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser Robert O’Brien as key in reining in some of Trump’s most dangerous impulses.

“They would bring people like myself in, or [Sen.] Lindsey Graham [(R-S.C.)], and it’s important to have his ear, to make sure he doesn’t get off the reservation.”

Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and James Lankford (R-Okla.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, have both rejected Trump’s threats to NATO but punted on the question if Congress should have more power to protect the alliance.

“We’re not at that point yet. I do support NATO,” Ernst told The Hill. “I think it plays a very important function and we can see why. So let’s just stay the course.”

Lankford said Congress should not have to be in the position Trump is threatening.

“A president of the United States should actually want to stick with our alliances, so that shouldn’t be a necessary thing,” he said.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that while Congress could “look constantly” for ways to protect America’s leading role in NATO, he remained concerned about the various ways another Trump administration could weaken the alliance.

Reed raised concern that Trump could hold back from appointing an American as the supreme allied commander in Europe, the head of NATO’s military forces, in favor of a European general to convey Europe taking more control.

But having an American as the head of NATO forces is an ingrained tradition, given America’s nuclear arsenal that covers NATO allies, and the preponderance of NATO forces are American.

“Then you could go, well since we don’t control this any longer, why are we here?” Reed asked. “What we can do is ensure [Trump] is not president of the United States. That’s the bottom line.”

But Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Trump’s comments underscore that Congress needs to be more involved.

“Given his comments I think we need to look at other potential guardrails that need to be put in place because we can’t afford a president who insults our allies and gives credence to our enemies,” she told The Hill.

Jim Townsend, a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense for European and NATO policy, said Trump during his first term already sought to undermine U.S. force posture in Europe — pointing to Trump’s efforts while in office to draw down American forces from Germany. President Biden halted that order shortly after assuming office in February 2021.

“If he [Trump] were to develop a relationship with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, where Putin says: Look, your force posture and deployments in Europe, part of NATO, I find that threatening, and it would certainly be better for peace if you would pull out half your forces — or whatever Putin might say — and Trump says, OK, I’ll do that — that’s something that would really be a problem,” Townsend said.

“We’ve got to protect U.S. force posture in Europe. If he begins to pull out of Europe or re-deploys them in a way that doesn’t do what NATO needs U.S. forces to do, that’s a problem.”

Townsend, an adjunct senior fellow in the Center for New American Security Transatlantic Security Program, said the debate was unsettled over whether Congress’s power of the purse can be used to override the president’s power as commander in chief.

“I think that would set off a bit of a constitutional squabble. I mean, the president has the right to move forces, and the Congress has the right to say what’s going to be paid for or not,” he said.

National security professionals and conservative think tanks close to the former president are sharpening options for Trump to impose consequences on NATO members that he views as failing to pull their weight in the alliance.

Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general viewed as a close adviser to Trump, told Reuters in an interview that he supported reforming NATO into a “tiered alliance,” where allies who have met or surpassed the commitment to reach 2 percent spending on defense would enjoy greater protection from the alliance.

Kellogg declined to tell Reuters if he had discussed the idea with Trump. During a campaign rally in South Carolina, Trump boasted that as president, he told a European president he would not come to the defense of NATO countries under attack if they had not met their military spending commitments.

“You didn’t pay?” Trump recalled telling the European leader, who wasn’t identified by name. “You’re delinquent. No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.”

O’Brien, meanwhile, has said a second Trump administration could likely impose a policy of placing tariffs on NATO countries that had not increased their defense spending to 2 percent of their gross domestic product.

Bolton, who is opposed to a second Trump presidency, has called those ideas “foolish” and “silly.”

“I think some of his people are trying to come up with ideas to smooth over the threat of withdrawal, which I think is serious.”

Tags Jack Reed John Bolton Joni Ernst Michael McCaul NATO