U.S. President Joe Biden sharply criticized Donald Trump on Tuesday over his comments questioning future support for NATO allies in the event of an attack, calling them “un-American,” “dangerous” and “dumb.”
Trump, who is likely to face Biden in November’s presidential election, has come under fire for suggesting at a campaign rally last weekend that he would abandon NATO members that don’t meet their defence spending commitments, and would even encourage aggressors like Russia to “do whatever the hell they want.”
“Can you imagine a former President of the United States saying that?” Biden said at the White House, where he delivered remarks urging U.S. House Republicans to take up a Senate-passed aid bill to fund Ukraine’s efforts to hold off Russia’s two-year-long invasion.
“For God’s sake, it’s dumb, it’s shameful, it’s dangerous, it’s un-American,” he added.
One of NATO’s foundational principles is Article 5, which commits to collective defence and the vow that an attack against one member is an attack against all, and will result in allied action.
But Trump has often lamented other members are not pulling their weight by not meeting the alliance’s pledge of spending at least two per cent of GDP on defence. Trump has equated that non-binding pledge with membership dues, suggesting members are leeching off the U.S. military and openly questioning the value of the post-war military alliance.
“Donald Trump looks at this as if it’s a burden,” Biden said. “When he looks at NATO, he doesn’t see the alliance that protects America and the world. He sees a protection racket.”
He noted that Article 5 has only been invoked once in NATO’s 70-year history, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S.
Trump doubled down on his criticism of NATO Tuesday, posting on his Truth Social account shortly after Biden spoke that “NATO countries have to pay up. They’re making a mockery of the U.S.A.”
Canada has for years fallen short of hitting the two per cent of GDP target, as have other members. Only Poland, which has been under Russian control more often than not since the end of the 18th century, spends more on defence than the U.S. within the alliance.
In linking Trump’s comments to the current fight in Congress over Ukraine aid, Biden said Republicans were at risk of bowing to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s wishes of seeing NATO fracture and Ukraine lose its most critical source of wartime funding.
The U.S. ran out of congressionally-approved aid for Kyiv in December, and the White House has been pushing for lawmakers to greenlight US$60 billion in new aid as well as billions more for Israel and the Indo-Pacific.
The Senate passed that aid Tuesday morning in a US$95.34 billion supplemental package, but Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has already said he won’t take up the bill because it doesn’t include harsh immigration policy changes his party has been pushing for. A version of the bill that included many of those policy changes was defeated last week by Republican opposition spurred by Trump.
Biden said Trump’s NATO comments made it more urgent that the new aid get passed immediately.
“No other president in our history has ever bowed down to a Russian dictator,” Biden said. “Well, let me say this as clearly as I can: I never will.”