by Franco Torchia –
The front pages of today’s newspapers report in large letters some shocking statements by the American tycoon Donald Trump engaged in the November presidential election campaign, which he strongly aspires to in order to return to the White House.
What was incriminated was a phrase that was interpreted by commentators as a threat. Trump once again returned to the role of NATO by launching a real torpedo against Europe, shouting from the rooftops: «I would encourage Russia to invade NATO countries that don’t pay… I don’t
I would defend this kind of country.”
In reality, when he added that “in this way I convinced the Europeans to pay” it was understood that it was only an express provocation to exalt his negotiating skills in front of American public opinion.
But this was enough for our commentators to express strong fears for Trump’s possible return to the presidency of the United States.
And European politics responded as if we didn’t know who he was, as if we had never known him. Yet we already knew of his foreign policy vision that promised “America First” and of his crude expressions in relations with other great powers and also with Europe.
Therefore, there is nothing new under the sun and there is no point in being scandalized.
We have already been through this and we have already witnessed these oddities and provocations during the four years of US presidency from 2016 to 2020, during which relations between the United States and large countries were quite stormy.
I just want to remember, for example, the very harsh tone used by Trump towards China, even accused of “raping the United States” with its trade policy.
Regarding relations with Europe, I want to recall what happened in 2018 during the annual summit of the Atlantic Alliance, which took place in Brussels. Already then the American president, strongly irritated towards the European states that maintained a high surplus in their trade balance to the detriment of military spending, had asked all the countries participating in the Alliance to increase their contributions, threatening to bring the United States outside NATO.
Trump had repeatedly expressed his intention of a US withdrawal from an Alliance deemed too expensive and without any economic return.
At the time, in fact, the USA paid over 3.5% of GDP to NATO while, despite the commitment made in 2006 to pay 2% of GDP, the European countries, except Greece, the United Kingdom and Estonia, they were very far from that figure. The 2% threshold was indicated as the political will of all members to continue and strengthen the Alliance.
After that strong pressure, almost all member countries increased their contributions but only to a limited extent and in any case always below 2%.
This helped strengthen the belief in some parts of Europe that Trump might be right, enough to push French President Emmanuel Macron to declare NATO brain dead. In reality, Macron, in an interview with the “Economist” in 2019, used a strong expression: “What we are experiencing is the brain death of NATO”, but he did so to criticize Turkey’s intervention against the Kurds and the disengagement from Syria by US President Donald Trump.
In essence, under the Trump presidency, relations between the United States and the European Union have deteriorated, also from a commercial point of view.
Everything changed under the presidency of Joe Biden but, above all, with the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 by Russia which brought the war to the heart of Europe, unexpectedly strengthening the Alliance, even expanding it to other Countries, fearful of Moscow’s expansionist attitude.
Although many governments pledged to increase their defense investments in the weeks following the invasion of Ukraine, according to a NATO report, at the beginning of 2023 only 11 of 30 member states were close to or above the 2% threshold.
It was above all the countries of the former Warsaw Pact and close to the eastern border that had freed themselves from the Soviet empire, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, that increased their contributions significantly, Poland even exceeding the percentage of the USA .
In particular, the largest contributors to NATO in 2023 are: Poland with 3.90%; USA 3.49%; Greece 3.01%; Estonia 2.73%; Lithuania 2.54%; Finland 2.45%; Romania 2.44%; Hungary 2.43%; Latvia 2.27%; United Kingdom 2.07%; Slovakia 2.03%. Other countries just under 2%: France 1.90%; Montenegro 1.87%; Macedonia 1.87%. Italy remains far behind with 1.46%.
In short, more than Trump’s pressure, it was the fear of being the target of Putin’s aims that convinced the Alliance member countries to increase their contributions. The war pushed other countries bordering Russia, and in particular Sweden and Finland, to ask to join the Alliance in order to be able to benefit, in case of need, from Article 5 of the Treaty which provides for collective defense and, therefore, NATO military intervention in the event of an attack on one of the member states of the Alliance.
Finland’s entry took place in April 2023. Regarding Sweden, there is still opposition from Turkey which places the condition of entry into the European Union in order to give the green light.
It is clear, therefore, that the war in Ukraine has led to a strong strengthening of the Atlantic Alliance.
I consider Trump’s just an electoral joke and I think that the tycoon himself is convinced that it can never come true.
That said, the Europeans responded in a very disorganized way without a minimum of caution. Certain reactions are not good for dialogue with the United States. Trump’s may be “reckless statements”, but these words from the mouth of the President of the European Council Charles Michel sound like an attack on the Republican candidate who, as we have understood, “ties things up on his fingers”.
Mr. Michel, knowing Trump’s intemperance, could have shown a little more caution or pretended not to have understood, because we know during the election campaign everything and the opposite of everything are said and the declarations in the coming months will be made even more incandescent.
Moreover, we all know that, in essence, Trump is right because the military bases of the Alliance, founded in 1949 for the “safeguarding of the security and freedom of the signatory states”, are located above all in Europe and, therefore, the USA is permanently committed on our continent to defending ourselves from the expansionist ambitions of countries such as Russia or China.
Certainly the tones used by Trump are excessive, as is his character, but they serve to sound the alarm clock for all countries that have so far slept under the protective umbrella of NATO.
Just as it becomes useless to continue to tear one’s clothes for fear that Trump might win and restart the isolationist policy.
We should get over it! A resumption of Trump’s isolationist policy would force Europe to build its own identity and implement a true community policy with its own army, its own defense, a true unity that is no longer fictitious, whose legal provisions are all contemplated in the Treaty of Lisbon signed in 2007.
The war in Ukraine was an opportunity in Europe for deep reflection and there was also room for a collective outburst against NATO and the United States.
In fact, a good part of Europeans continue to search for the reasons that pushed Moscow to attack Kiev, despite knowing them very well and which are clearly recognizable in Putin’s expansionist desire clearly expressed several times in the Russian dictator’s declarations.
Europe, which for a long time has been like an earthen pot among many iron pots, will have to make a great effort to finally become adults.
Paradoxically, therefore, a Trump victory can only do us good because it will put all the issues on the table and, by forcing the European Union to free itself from the United States, it will finally be possible to transform the Old Continent into a superpower capable of playing a leading role. protagonist on the global geopolitical stage.
In conclusion, I do not believe that, despite the electoral campaign slogans, Trump can decide to leave NATO, especially because in the annual law on defense policy and military spending, approved at the end of last year, the American Congress included a provision which requires a vote of the Senate with the approval of two-thirds of the members. A hypothesis, in short, fortunately very remote, but not to be underestimated.
Article in mediapartnership with Diplomatic Journal.
