Donald Trump has repeated his false claim that NATO was “not there” for America, in a fresh attack on the alliance’s member states posted less than a week before a highly anticipated NATO summit in Ankara.
“Ridiculous for the U.S.A. to continue along this one sided path when the relationship is not reciprocal. They were not there for us!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, describing the alliance as a “one-sided” relationship that no longer serves American interests. He attached a graphic claiming the US spent $999bn on NATO, against $90.5bn from the UK, $66.5bn from France, $48.8bn from Italy and $44.3bn from Poland, without stating where the figures came from or explaining how they related to NATO’s agreed target of allies spending at least 3.5% of GDP on defence by 2035.
Why the claim is false
NATO’s mutual defence clause, Article 5, has been formally invoked exactly once in the alliance’s history, in direct response to the September 11 2001 attacks on the United States. Following that invocation, NATO allies, including the UK, deployed forces to Afghanistan alongside American troops in sustained combat operations that continued for two decades. The claim that NATO “was not there” for the US directly contradicts this documented historical record.
This is not the first time Trump has made this specific claim, nor the first time it has been directly and publicly corrected. He first suggested in January that NATO should hand over Greenland having “never” supported the US, a comment made during a period of escalating tension over Greenland that eventually saw Trump drop his tariff threat after NATO discussions, with critics arguing he ultimately gained nothing from the confrontation.
Rutte’s rebuke
When NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte pointed out at Davos that member states had flocked to support the US in Afghanistan following 9/11, Trump responded by falsely claiming that coalition troops “stayed a little back, little off the frontlines” during the war, a characterisation that misrepresents the combat role NATO allies actually played, including British forces who suffered substantial and well-documented casualties over the course of the conflict.
Starmer’s spokesperson responds
Downing Street issued a direct correction following Trump’s comments about coalition troops. A spokesperson for Keir Starmer told reporters: “The president was wrong to diminish the role of NATO troops, including British forces, in Afghanistan. Following the 9/11 attacks on the US, Article 5 of the NATO treaty was invoked for the first time and British forces served alongside American and other allied troops in sustained combat operations. 457 British service personnel lost their lives in Afghanistan and many more were wounded. Many hundreds suffered life-changing injuries from their service, alongside the US and our allies in Afghanistan. Their sacrifice and that of other NATO forces was made in the service of collective security and in response to an attack on our ally. We are incredibly proud of our armed forces and their service and sacrifice will never be forgotten.”
That statement represents one of the more direct and specific rebuttals any British government has issued in response to a Trump claim about NATO, naming the exact casualty figure and stating plainly that the president “was wrong.”
Not the only recent correction
Conservative MP Alicia Kearns has separately taken on Trump’s NATO claims directly, describing what she called a “brutal reality check” needed for the president’s characterisation of the alliance’s burden-sharing arrangements. The fact that this correction has now come from senior figures across the UK’s political spectrum, Labour’s Downing Street operation and a Conservative backbencher, suggests the claim is regarded as sufficiently and demonstrably false to warrant cross-party pushback rather than being treated as a matter of political disagreement.
The underlying pressure campaign
Trump’s repeated NATO criticism sits within a broader, longer-running pressure campaign to push European allies toward significantly higher defence spending, reducing reliance on US military commitments. Member states agreed last year to boost overall defence-related spending, including civil preparedness and resilience measures, to 5% of GDP by 2035, a target that goes beyond the traditional core defence spending figure and includes broader security infrastructure investment.
This external pressure lands at a difficult moment for the UK specifically, with former Defence Secretary John Healey having resigned over what he characterised as an inadequately funded Defence Investment Plan, warning it fell short of Britain’s actual NATO commitments. The £15bn settlement eventually agreed remains well below the £28bn defence officials said was necessary, and there is still no confirmed UK timetable for reaching the newly agreed 3.5% core spending target, let alone the broader 5% figure including resilience spending.
The Iran context
Trump’s frustration with NATO allies has been sharpened by recent events in Iran, where multiple NATO member countries refused to allow American forces to use their military bases to launch strikes on Tehran, a refusal that has visibly irritated the president and appears to inform the timing and tone of his latest social media post, even though the alliance’s mutual defence obligations do not extend to offensive military action initiated unilaterally by a member state against a third country.
What happens at the Ankara summit
The timing of Trump’s post, less than a week before NATO leaders convene in Ankara, suggests an attempt to shape the summit’s agenda around burden-sharing grievances before formal discussions begin. Whether allies respond with further public corrections, as Rutte, Kearns and Downing Street have all done previously, or attempt to manage the disagreement privately to preserve alliance unity ahead of the summit, will be one of the clearer early indicators of how NATO intends to navigate what has become a recurring pattern of public friction with its most powerful member state.
One response to “Trump’s latest attack on NATO is already being demolished by the record”
-
It would be very interesting to hear DJT expand on tbe remark that NATO longer serves the interests of the USA ?
Leave a Reply