Biden, Trump fears loom over NATO summit, Europe's defense

Francesca ChambersMichael Collins

　

　

                               WASHINGTON – NATO leaders returned this week to the auditorium where the alliance was born to celebrate 75 years as a military-defense pact and mull over current and future threats to its stability.

                         But hanging over the three-day summit like a dark cloud is a major concern that’s not on the official agenda: the U.S. presidential election.

                               President Joe Biden’s physical and mental fitness, after last month’s calamitous debate, and former President Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House following the November election are cause for alarm among European allies.

　

                                                

　

                            “This is an election where the Europeans are paying very close attention,” said Rose Gottemoeller, who was deputy secretary general of NATO when Trump was president.

                            Gottemoeller said she has taken several recent trips to Europe – most recently in May and June – and “the first question out of people's   mouth was what happens if Donald Trump returns to the White House and what will happen to the American commitment to NATO and to European defense?”

                          Fueling the fears are Trump’s dismissive attitude toward NATO. He has mocked its defense pact as “obsolete” and threatened to let Russia “do whatever” it wants to member nations that do not carry their weight.

                             The threats have left European governments scrambling to determine whether the U.S. could be counted on to defend them if they were to come under attack.

                           Biden’s shaky performance during the debate also alarmed European officials, who watched it with the same level of as many Americans.

                  Dan Fried, the former U.S. ambassador to Poland, was in Warsaw the day of the debate and had a series of meetings with senior Polish officials the next day. Those officials expressed concern about the election, he said.

　

　

              

         

　

What the former president’s approach to NATO might be has been a major source of consternation for allies.

He has repeatedly suggested he won’t help “delinquent” nations if they come under attack, even though NATO’s treaty does not include dues or a defense spending obligation. 

“Look, that's the way you talk as a negotiator. I'm negotiating because I want them to pay. I want Europe to pay,” Trump said in an April interview with Time Magazine. “I want nothing bad to happen to Europe, I love Europe, I love the people of Europe, I have a great relationship with Europe. But they've taken advantage of us, both on NATO and on Ukraine.”

Allies pledged at a 2014 summit in Wales they would try to spend 2% of their GDPs on defense. They agreed last summer in Vilnius, Lithuania, that 2% should be a floor and not a ceiling.

And while a decade ago, in 2014, just three NATO allies were spending 2% or more, that number is projected to reach 23 by the end of 2024. It actually doubled under Biden, but much of that, experts say, is because of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

And yet, when Trump debated Biden in June, he doubled down on his position. “He’s right about this, I said, no, I’m not going to support NATO if you don’t pay.”

“And you know what happened? Billions and billions of dollars came flowing in the next day and the next months,” he said. “But now, we’re in the same position. We’re paying everybody’s bills.”

His constant disparaging of NATO and his threat to withhold Article 5 defense protections against members who don’t meet their 2% pledge is alarming to NATO members, Fried said.

“A lot of NATO governments are not wringing their hands or just running around in a kind of panic,” he said. “What they’re doing is trying to figure out how to reach Trump world, what their message should be and how to affect possible Trump administration thinking.”