Trump's NATO exit talk a pipe dream

Former US president Donald Trump has said that if he returns to the White House he wouldn't waste taxpayers' money on foolish wars. He was clearly referring to the Ukraine-Russia conflict, besides targeting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which he blames for not picking up the tab.

Trump has smartly chosen the economy as his main target, which is easy to move ordinary voters. His logic is clear. The military conflict is taking place in Europe, but European nations do not have money to pay for it, as a result of which taxpayers in the US are pitching in.

He had applied a similar logic in 2016, when he asked NATO members to increase military spending to 2 percent of their GDP. He even called for dismissing NATO and is doing so again as he goes about trying to return to the White House.

However, it won't be easy for Trump to return to power using the "exit NATO" strategy. During his tenure as US president, Trump led the US to exit from treaties and organizations ranging from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris Agreement, UNESCO and the UN Human Rights Council.

In order to prevent Trump from leading the US out of NATO, the US House of Representatives passed a bipartisan law in January 2019 that required approval from Congress for the US to exit from NATO; the US Senate further passed it in December 2019. Legally speaking, it won't be easy for any US president to lead the country out of NATO. In reality, the US public has not benefited in any way from their country exiting organizations and treaties and might not support Trump on this ground either. The coming presidential election in the US is still uncertain, but it won't be easy for the US to exit NATO.