European Lackeys, Relax!… Trump Won’t Ditch NATO

There’s a laughable scare story doing the rounds in Western media that Trump is going to pull the U.S. out of NATO if elected president next year.

There’s a laughable scare story doing the rounds in Western media that Donald Trump is going to pull the U.S. out of the NATO alliance if he is elected president next year.

The New York Times headlined: “Fears of a NATO Withdrawal Rise as Trump Seeks a Return to Power”.

It goes on to report: “Current and former European diplomats said there was growing concern a second Trump presidency could mean an American retreat from the continent and a gutting of NATO.”

According to the NY Times: “European ambassadors and think tank officials have been making pilgrimages to associates of Mr Trump to inquire about his intentions… In interviews over the past several months, more than a half-dozen current and former European diplomats — speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from Mr Trump should he win — said alarm was rising on Embassy Row and among their home governments that Mr Trump’s return could mean not just the abandonment of Ukraine, but a broader American retreat from the continent and a gutting of the Atlantic alliance.”

The newspaper quotes Admiral James Stavridis, a former commander of NATO (2009-2013), as saying: “There is great fear in Europe that a second Trump presidency would result in an actual pullout of the United States from NATO.”

Another alarmist voice is that of former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper who headed up the Pentagon during Trump’s earlier presidency. Esper told U.S. media last week that Trump would pull the United States out of NATO and also withdraw thousands of American troops from bases in South Korea and Japan.

It is being touted that if Trump overcame his various legal battles and succeeded in returning for a second presidency by beating incumbent Joe Biden next November he will unleash mayhem among America’s allies and cripple U.S. foreign interests.

Of course, the media outlets that are promoting this kind of fear-mongering are diehard anti-Trump outlets. The frenzy about Trump pulling out of NATO and the supposed “anxiety” among allies is a threadbare electioneering ploy to raise fears among U.S. voters that the Republican candidate is going to damage the international standing of the United States and harm national security interests.

Deja vu! These are the same media who concocted the whole “Russia-gate” nonsense alleging that Trump was a Russian stooge in cahoots with the Kremlin. That narrative failed to disenfranchise Trump’s election back in 2016 against Hillary Clinton. That whole media circus ran for much of Trump’s presidency (2017-2021) and yet despite the relentless media obsession, the Russia-gate story is hardly talked about now, demonstrating that it was a complete hoax played on the American and Western public.

The Trump-NATO-sabotage narrative is a pale version of the Trump-Russia-stooge smear story.

Yes, Trump has repeatedly bad-mouthed NATO and at various times in the past, he did imply threats that he would pull the U.S. out of the transatlantic alliance. He also castigated other allies around the world for “freeloading” on U.S. military power and not paying enough towards their own defense.

But this isn’t Trump putting forward a principled position about scaling back U.S. imperial power and its hundreds of military bases around the world. This is Trump being transactional and an ignorant big-mouth.

When he berates other NATO and Asian allies for “owing money” to the United States for their defense, this is Trump thinking he is a wise guy squeezing dollars out of clients. His threats to wind down U.S. militarism overseas are empty bluffs and have nothing to do with principled curtailing of imperialist hegemony. It’s the same U.S. bullying and aggression only with the primary objective of billing “allies” for American militarism.

Fanboys of Trump like to claim that he was the only U.S. president in modern times who didn’t start a new war during his tenure at the White House. Big deal, as if that is a virtue!

Trump launched air strikes on Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. He greatly increased trade war tensions with China and over Taiwan. And Trump continued arming the Ukrainian regime as Obama had done before him for its aggression against Russian-speaking regions which led up to the current proxy war against Russia.

He was also slavishly pro-Israel having relocated the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and giving the Israeli regime carte blanche to ramp up its annexation of Palestinian lands and the Golan Heights. Trump’s pro-Israel kowtowing inflamed tensions that have burst into the present genocidal violence.

The Republican politician is an unscrupulous ignoramus of international politics. He is smart enough though to realise that many American voters are once again fed up with U.S. militarism and funding of the Ukrainian regime.

So, he will no doubt play the card of “ending endless wars” as he did in the 2016 election. But Trump won’t do a damn thing to change U.S. imperialist aggression.

There is no way Trump is going to pull the U.S. out of NATO. For a start, he is not going to forfeit the NATO tool for American global bullying. He only wants to screw around with the financing of that tool so that it saves the U.S. money.

Remember, Trump promised he would normalise relations with Russia when he last got elected. He didn’t do a thing to improve relations, they got worse. Admittedly, he was hemmed in by anti-Trump media and their ridiculous smears against him for being a “Putin stooge”. Nevertheless, Trump was pathetic in not standing up for his supposed principles. This proves the point that all U.S. presidents after John F Kennedy are pathetic puppets for the powers that be.

There is no way Trump is going to do anything that would undermine NATO. He might annoy European vassals with his big, boorish mouth. But he is not going to pull the U.S. out of the alliance. It is essential as a U.S. “force multiplier”. The American establishment is not going to let Trump anywhere near ditching the imperialist vehicle.

Besides, Trump hasn’t a clue about how vital NATO is for U.S. imperialism. He only sees dollar signs in his eyes. His threats to pull the U.S. out of NATO are the vain words of an American narcissist who has no idea about how U.S. imperial power projection works.

Trump is not a pro-peace American leader. He is a penny-pinching imperialist on the cheap. If he somehow stumbles into jeopardizing NATO relations, be assured he will be straitjacketed by the deep state. Assuming he even gets anywhere near the White House again.

So, the bottom line is: European lackeys should relax, don’t fret, and keep licking Uncle Sam’s boots. Their servility in the transatlantic alliance is not remotely in danger from Donald Trump – or any other U.S. president for that matter.

However, the only danger might be that European citizens have to pay more for their elites’ servility.

European Lackeys, Relax!… Trump Won’t Ditch NATO