On Wednesday, President Donald Trump renewed his criticism of NATO after a closed-door meeting in Washington with the alliance’s secretary-general, Mark Rutte, even though the talks had been expected to focus on soothing Trump’s anger tied to the Iran war. After the meeting, Trump posted in all caps that NATO “WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN,” according to the Associated Press account.
The criticism built on Trump’s comments before the meeting, when he suggested the U.S. might consider leaving the trans-Atlantic alliance. The complaint was linked to what Trump described as NATO members’ failure to respond as the Iran war escalated around the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping waterway, and as the administration said the conflict drove up gas prices.
The White House acknowledged ahead of the encounter that the possibility of leaving NATO was on the agenda. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that she expected Trump to discuss leaving NATO with Rutte “in a couple of hours.”
The meeting with Rutte came after the U.S. and Iran agreed late Tuesday to a two-week ceasefire that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The Associated Press report said the ceasefire was struck after Trump had threatened to strike Iran’s power plants and bridges, warning that “a whole civilization will die tonight,” and after Trump argued that securing the Strait of Hormuz was not America’s job but the responsibility of countries that rely on the oil route.
While Trump and Rutte have had what the report described as a warm relationship in the past, NATO has also been dealing with strains in recent years. The alliance’s mutual defense commitment is designed so that an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all, and the AP report said the alliance’s defense pact has been activated only once—after the Sept. 11 attacks, when NATO supported the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Associated Press said it was unclear whether Trump’s administration would challenge the 2023 law that bars a president from pulling the U.S. out of NATO without congressional approval. The law passed in 2023, and the AP report said it had been championed by Trump’s current secretary of state, Marco Rubio, when Rubio was a U.S. senator.
Ahead of Trump’s talks with Rutte, Rubio met separately with the NATO secretary-general at the State Department. In a statement, the State Department said Rubio and Rutte discussed the war with Iran, U.S. efforts to negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, and “increasing coordination and burden shifting with NATO allies.”
Trump’s NATO pressure has also extended beyond the Iran conflict. The AP report said Trump appeared angry Wednesday about NATO’s stance on Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark and a NATO member, and that Trump previously pressed for U.S. control over Greenland before backing off after talks with Rutte. Trump posted Wednesday as well: “REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!”
The strain during the Iran war has included friction with European allies. The AP said Spain and France barred or restricted U.S. use of their airspace or joint military facilities for the Iran war, while the report added that those countries and others agreed to help with an international coalition to reopen the Strait of Hormuz when the conflict ends.
Congressional and allied concerns over NATO’s role have also surfaced in public statements. The AP report cited a Tuesday night statement from Sen. Mitch McConnell supporting the alliance, saying that after the September 11 attacks, NATO allies sent “their young servicemembers to fight and die alongside America’s own” in Afghanistan and Iraq, and urging Trump to be “clear and consistent” rather than “spend more time nursing grudges with allies who share our interests than deterring adversaries who threaten us.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was set to travel Wednesday to support the ceasefire effort in the Gulf, according to the Associated Press report. The U.K. has also been working on a post-conflict security plan for the Strait of Hormuz, where the report said about one-fifth of the world’s oil passes through the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman.