Does Donald Trump want the U.S. to leave NATO?

For the third time in their history, Donald Trump and Joe Biden met on the debate stage on Thursday, June 28, 2024.

The result was an absolute mess. Joe Biden is too old and Donald Trump is too unhinged to make either option look favorable, but voters must select one nonetheless. While Biden mumbled through answers and lost his train of thought, Trump outright lied, deflected, and meandered his way through a variety of hot-button topics tossed his way by CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.

At the end of the debate, understandably dismayed viewers were left with more questions than answers. While the moderators did their best to get genuine answers out of the candidates, their respective responses left most viewers baffled. As a result, quite a few lingering questions remain, as American citizens try to sort out vital topics like the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Can NATO survive another Trump term?

Donald Trump has been among NATO’s biggest critics for years, and during his first term in office the disgraced president frequently discussed the possibility of pulling out of the organization completely. It was a frightening potential for four years, while the 77-year-old was in office, but the looming possibility disappeared when Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.

Now that he’s up for a second round in the Oval Office, the threat of a U.S. departure from NATO is back on the table. The topic arose in the first 2024 presidential debate, and Trump’s deflection and non-answers didn’t give Americans much faith that the vital alliance can survive another Trump presidency.

Despite those looming fears, however, there’s a very good chance that Trump won’t pull the U.S. from NATO. He’ll certainly threaten to do so, and give us all a good dose of panic in the process, but the presidential candidate has said he doesn’t plan to remove the U.S. from the organization — so long as it meets his terms.

Trump would like to see every NATO nation pay their “fair share,” something he thinks hasn’t happened so far. If that doesn’t happen, he’s threatened to end the treaty once and for all. He wants to see European nations massively increase their contributions to NATO, leaving the United States pay less, and he’s gone so far as to warn other NATO nations “not take advantage” of the U.S.

“NATO has to treat the U.S. fairly,” the former president said. “Because if it’s not for the United States, NATO literally doesn’t even exist.”

There’s certainly a looming risk to NATO if Trump cinches another term in office, and a renegotiation of terms is almost guaranteed in that event, but the organization isn’t necessarily doomed if Trump somehow secures a victory. The world at large might be, unfortunately, so in that terrifying eventuality NATO may end up the least of our concerns.