Trump questions NATO allies’ will for collective defense while casting doubt on U.S.’ own treaty commitment

President Trump suggested Thursday that members of the U.S.-led NATO transatlantic military alliance would not come to the aid of the U.S., should America come under attack. NATO members are bound to back each other militarily in the face of any aggression under the collective defense clause in the alliance’s founding treaty.

“Do you think they’re going to come and protect us? Hmm. They’re supposed to. I’m not so sure,” Mr. Trump said as he addressed reporters at the Oval Office. 

He said in the same conversation that he would breach that treaty and only send the U.S. military to defend NATO allies that contribute what he deems to be a fair share of their national GDPs to their defense budgets.

A core foundation upon which the nearly 80-year-old alliance is built is Article 5 of the NATO founding treaty. Under that article, should any NATO nation become the victim of an armed attack, the other members will consider it as an attack against all members and will “take the actions it deems necessary” to assist.

Article 5 has only been invoked once in NATO’s history, and that was on Sept. 12, 2001, one day after Al-Qaeda killed almost 3,000 people in its unprecedented terrorist attack on Washington and New York.

In the U.S.-led invasions that followed in Iraq and Afghanistan, America’s NATO allies cumulatively lost well over 1,000 troops in combat over a 20 year period. Britain alone lost 642 members of its armed forces. 

More than 7,000 members of the U.S. armed forces were killed during that same period, according to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. 

President Trump was speaking in response to a question about whether the U.S. would defend NATO partners if they were not paying what he deems to be their fair share toward their own defense. 

The president has long argued that the U.S. carries an undue burden, spending more to help ensure Europe’s defense than the NATO members on the continent, and he’s pushing now for those members to boost their domestic defense spending to at least 5% of their respective GDPs.

“I said if you’re not going to pay, we’re not going to defend… if you’re not going to pay your bills, we’re not going to defend you,” Mr. Trump said.

The 5% defense spending Mr. Trump has demanded of America’s NATO allies is a significantly higher proportion than what the U.S. pays. The U.S. currently allocates about 3% of its GDP to defense annually, one of the higher amounts relative to other NATO nations, but not the highest.

According to data compiled by the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, the highest spender, relative to its GDP, is Poland, which shares a long border with Ukraine. Then, after the U.S., come Greece and a number of NATO nations right on the eastern edge of democratic Europe, closest to Ukraine and, beyond it, Russia, along with the Nordic states.

Over the past decade, European NATO members and Canada have steadily increased their collective spending on defense from 1.43% of their combined GDP in 2014, to 2.02% in 2024, according to figures posted on NATO’s website — but many individual member states are still falling well short of the 5% mark that Mr. Trump has called for. Some have yet to even meet the 2% of GDP spending threshold currently set as a target by the alliance.

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda on Thursday said he had proposed a spending minimum of 3% of GDP for all NATO members in a post on social media.

Friedrich Merz, the likely next leader of Germany, also announced a plan this week to raise hundreds of billions of dollars in extra spending on defense and infrastructure should he take office.

Mr. Trump’s remarks came at the end of a week in which his administration ruffled European feathers by appearing to question the contributions of America’s NATO allies. 

In pointed comments on Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron said France and the U.S. were “loyal and faithful allies,” and that France had “respect and friendship” for the United States. 

“I think we’re entitled to expect the same,” Macron said

Vance irks U.K. and France with remark he claims wasn’t aimed at them

In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Vice President JD Vance appeared to diminish the value of military contributions by key U.S. allies — both past and future — while discussing the proposed minerals deal between Ukraine and the U.S. 

Vance said the potential economic deal, which the White House has pushed Kyiv hard to sign, “is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.”

Those comments sparked outrage from politicians in France and the U.K. — the only two countries that have thus far said they might send troops to help maintain peace under a ceasefire in Ukraine.

While Vance later appeared to walk his remarks back on social media, saying that both countries had, “fought bravely alongside the US over the last 20 years” and that he did not “even mention the UK or France” in the interview, the diplomatic damage was done.

France’s far right leader Marine Le Pen condemned Vance’s comments, defending the “noble memory” of French troops and saying that “no patriot will therefore allow it to be said that our country is ordinary.” 

U.K. Member of Parliament Ben Obese-Jecty, a former British Army officer who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, told CBS News’ partner network BBC News on Tuesday, “the disrespect shown by the new US vice-president to the sacrifices of our service personnel is unacceptable.”

“It’s difficult to see who he was talking about, if he wasn’t talking about Britain and France,” Obese-Jecty said.