Can Trump Unilaterally Pull America Out of NATO? Europe May Soon Find Out
And would this make Ukraine’s NATO membership more or less likely?
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On April 1st, Trump told the Telegraph he’s “strongly considering” pulling the United States out of NATO, calling the alliance a “paper tiger,” and tying that hostility explicitly to Europe’s refusal to back his ill-conceived war against Iran.
Marco Rubio echoed that sentiment when Spain outright refused US military overflights tied to Gulf War III: The Search for More Oil.
At the same time, Defense Secretary and middle school bully Pete Hegseth declined to reaffirm NATO’s collective defense guarantee when asked directly, saying the decision was “up to Trump.”
You know… throughout 2025 and early 2026, I kept thinking to myself, perhaps optimistically, that this damage can and will be undone. It might take three generations, but surely, we will someday regain the trust of our friends and allies.
Right?
Welp, that optimistic thinking assumes that World War III doesn’t happen first.
Could Trump unilaterally pull the US out of NATO? You might be surprised
Congress tried to lock this door after Trump’s first term.
Section 1250A of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act says the president may not suspend, terminate, or withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty without two-thirds Senate consent or an Act of Congress.
Wait, why would Congress do this? Doesn’t the US Constitution already require two-thirds Senate consent for treaties?
Yes, Article II clearly says how the US enters a treaty: the president makes treaties “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate,” with two-thirds of senators present concurring.
But the Constitution is silent on how the US withdraws from one.
So, the 2024 NDAA rule was Congress trying to fill a gap and block a president from claiming, “Sure, the Senate helps me get into treaties, but I can get out of them alone.”
Also, NATO’s own treaty gives a one-year notice window before withdrawal takes effect so leaving wouldn’t be immediate… in theory.
All of this sounds reassuring, but it’s basically a home security sticker on a first floor, single-pane window.
Here’s the problem: a president doesn’t need a clean, lawful exit to damage deterrence. He can erode it in place. He can turn NATO into a shell company with a headquarters in Delaware, a shitty AI-generated logo, and a stock price in freefall.
He can slow-walk deployments, freeze planning, undercut exercises, refuse to reaffirm Article 5, and make every crisis feel conditional on what you’ve done for him lately.
If Trump actually tried an overt unilateral withdrawal and Congress fought back, that case would likely land at the Supreme Court faster than you can say “ground war in Iran.” And I’m not betting the mortgage that the current conservative majority Court wakes up every morning asking how best to frustrate Trump’s Article II ambitions.
A presidential-power reading that favors unitary executive authority over statutory limits is a live option.
But here’s the part that actually keeps me up at night, and I mean that less metaphorically than it sounds:
A formal US withdrawal from NATO would be catastrophic.
Everyone sees that train coming.
Markets freak out, Europe goes through a vulnerable transition period, and journalists take the word “historic” and run it into the ground with every Substack post.
But a half-detached America might actually be worse because it leaves NATO’s institutional shell standing while quietly hollowing out the confidence that made it matter at all.
NATO works because Article 5 is a promise backed by US nuclear assurance, strategic lift, intelligence, air and missile defense, maritime power, and the assumption that Washington won’t turn every emergency into a protection racket.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in March that the US umbrella remains the “ultimate guarantor” of European security. You can’t replace American nuclear assurance and command weight by buying more Gripens.
But Europe’s situation is not hopeless.
Reuters reported on March 26th that NATO’s European members and Canada increased defense spending by 20% in 2025. Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia have already passed the 3.5% GDP benchmark for core defense spending.
I have a fun YouTube video coming out this Friday that discusses Canada reaching its NATO spending target. I say “fun” because I love to poke fun at my northern neighbors. The video is actually very complimentary to Canada’s military efforts. I need to grease the skids because I may have to flee the United States at some point in the future as a political refugee, and Canada is only a short drive away. (I’m only half-kidding)…
Europe has real armies, real shipyards, real air forces, and very real memories of what happens when the continent’s security architecture collapses. It gets cities full of ghosts.
But money isn’t coherence. That’s the part everyone keeps skipping over.
European security without US backing lives or dies on coherence like shared command, common procurement, interoperable air defense, logistics that work under fire, clear nuclear signaling, and a frontline posture that convinces Moscow the cost of testing the alliance is still insane.
A NATO with no US
So, what does that actually look like if Trump either pulls out or effectively gut-punches NATO from inside?
Europe needs a real, local operational core, ASAP.
The alliance would need a hard center of gravity built around Britain, France, Germany, Poland, and the Baltic-Nordic states, with Romania on the southeastern flank and Canada still plugged in wherever it can.
