Trump Takes on NATO and U.S. Allies

President Donald Trump is not a friend of America’s historic alliances, which he sees as mostly benefiting the allies and restraining his America First strategies on trade and diplomacy.

Trump took the NATO alliance and its members to task at a now infamous July diplomatic swing from a rancorous Brussels NATO meeting, to an embarrassing dust-up with Prime Minister Theresa May in England, to the poorly received summit with Russian President Putin in Helsinki.

After the NATO summit, Senator John McCain expressed his straightforward disapproval of Trump’s behavior with a tweet.

And, American public opinion is generally in agreement with the late senator. It is highly favorable toward NATO, with upwards of 80 percent saying that the alliance should be maintained (Gallup 2018) (Pew: 62% favorable view, 2018).

The acrimony with American allies has been building from previous meetings, especially the G7 meeting in Quebec on June 10-11. A photo was released by the German Embassy of the discussion with annoyed-appearing Prime Ministers Angela Merkel and Shinzo Abe and President Emmanuel Macron facing an obstinate-looking Trump and his National Security Advisor John Bolton.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks with President Donald Trump
 during the Group of 7 summit meeting in La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada,
June 9, 2018 | Jesco Denzel/German Federal Government via New York Times