10 March 2025
On 4 March Donald Trump's nominee to be US ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, pledged to strengthen NATO and said Donald Trump remains committed to the alliance. "If confirmed, I will work tirelessly to strengthen the alliance, ensure the security of the American people and uphold our nation's role as the beacon of freedom and liberty", Whitaker said at his confirmation hearing before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Some Trump allies — including Elon Musk — have called for a US withdrawal from NATO.
However, two days later on 6 March, it was reported that US President Donald Trump was considering making it official US policy that Washington will not come to the aid of NATO members that don’t meet the alliance’s military spending target, questioning whether those allies would do the same for America. “You know, if the United States was in trouble, and we called them and said, ‘We have a problem, France, we have a problem … do you think they’re going to come and defend us? They’re supposed to. I’m not so sure,” he said. Trump had affirmed the US commitment to the mutual defence of NATO as recently as the 27 February during a press conference alongside British prime minister Keir Starmer.
The collective defence provisions of the NATO Treaty under Article 5 have been invoked only once in the alliance’s 75-year history: when the US was attacked on 11 September 2001. In the subsequent 20-year ‘war on terror’, most of those killed in the coalition fighting in Afghanistan were American, but well over 1,000 of them were international partners.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on 6 March that Trump has made both the United States’ and his personal commitment to NATO clear. “The transatlantic partnership remains the bedrock of our alliance,” Rutte added during a press conference held alongside Polish president Andrzej Duda in Brussels.
Whitaker had said something similar on 4 March: "President Trump has been clear. The United States remains committed to NATO and to peace through strength," adding that the commitment will be “ironclad” added, referring to Article 5, but his main priority in Brussels will be to push allies to commit to 5% per cent military spending as a proportion of their gross domestic product (GDP), which is far more than Washington spends. Whitaker said that, if confirmed, he would visit every NATO member within his first 30 days, to discuss this demand. "I believe that a robust NATO can continue to serve as a bedrock of peace and prosperity, but its vitality rests on every ally doing their fair share by growing our economies and investing in our common defence," he said.
Whitaker, 55, a lawyer with little foreign policy experience, worked in the Justice Department during Trump's first term, including three months from late 2018 to early 2019 as acting attorney general. Despite some Democratic pushback during the hearing, Whitaker is unlikely to face steep hurdles in moving his confirmation forward in the Republican-controlled Senate, who have a 53-seat majority.
Trump has said he was not sure the US should be spending anything on NATO, leading to speculation that he might withdraw the United States from the alliance, despite a US law forbidding any president from doing so unilaterally.
Meanwhile, concerned European leaders holding emergency talks in Brussels on 6 March backed plans to spend more on defence and pledged to continue to stand by Ukraine.