Name: Can Trump really pull the U.S. out of NATO?
Uploaded: 2026-04-02T16:21:13.238Z
Duration: 3 min
Description: President Trump continues to slam the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for their lack of support in the Strait of Hormuz as the Iran war rages on. Jack Detsch, a defense reporter at POLITICO, joins CBS News with more insight.

President Trump continues to slam the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for their lack of support in the Strait of Hormuz as the Iran war rages on. Jack Detsch, a defense reporter at POLITICO, joins CBS News with more insight.

Washington

President Trump's recent threats to withdraw the United States from NATO have raised questions about the feasibility and consequences of such an action. While a U.S. president has the authority to initiate withdrawal, a Senate bill requires a two-thirds majority for the move, making the process complex and likely to result in legal challenges.

NATO officials and European leaders express concern that even without a formal withdrawal, Trump's rhetoric and lack of engagement could undermine the alliance's strength. Former officials note that Trump's earlier pressure led to increased NATO defense spending, but his current stance has caused confusion and uncertainty among allies.

Can Trump really pull the U.S. out of NATO?

For more on President Trump's recent threats to pull the U.S. out of the NATO alliance, we're joined by Politico defense reporter Jack Detch in Washington. Jack, good morning to you. Fact check us here, because we know the president is expressing disgust with NATO, in part because he's not getting support to open up the Strait of Hormuz. But can any one lone president pull the U.S. out of this long-term alliance? Well, the answer is yes and no, Errol. The U.S. has the ability to pull out of NATO almost unilaterally. They would owe the alliance a year-long gap to try and adjust. But of course, the Senate, before Trump came into office, passed a bill that requires a two-thirds vote, two-thirds majority of the Senate, to leave NATO. It's not clear that President Trump would have that. And then he would probably have a lawsuit on his hands, not just perhaps from Congress, but perhaps from private citizens. So this could very well end up in the Supreme Court if Trump did want to pull the U.S. out of NATO. Now, by now, most Americans know the president has a specific style to his negotiating. He can say kind of large, blustery things to kind of extract what he wants and perhaps find a middle ground. Do you get the sense that that's what this is really about? I mean, he did criticize NATO previously when it came to defense spending, and the alliance did increase the overall percentage. That's sort of the message we heard from several NATO officials. They thought this was more bluff. This was perhaps in line with the U.S. ranking up the pressure when it came to crises on Europe. But you still see just this pattern of damaging rhetoric and perhaps the most damaging rhetoric we've seen from Trump calling it a paper tiger, NATO, and basically saying that President Vladimir Putin of Russia saw this too. And you just see even confusion from within the ranks of former Trump officials. Some of those I spoke to said, look, Trump's signature foreign policy achievement is ramping up NATO defense spending from 2 percent to 5 percent, getting them to do more on the continent. Now he's asking them to pull away from that. So just huge confusion across the alliance. And because of that confusion and the messaging, do you get the sense that the strength of the alliance has been fundamentally shaken just by the president's comments? That's exactly the fear that I'm hearing from European officials, that basically even if Trump doesn't decide to pull out of NATO, and certainly we didn't hear any talk of NATO in that speech last night, he could still starve it of high-level attention. He might not attend the NATO summit in Turkey this summer. He could starve it of military assets. And one German official I talked to said, look, with Trump in office, NATO is essentially meaningless. We're biding our time here, but the damage that we're facing is immense. All right. Jack Detsch, we'll keep watching this closely. Thanks for joining us from Washington to walk us through the key details. Thanks for your time.

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