The Uncertain Future Surrounding NATO

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0:24For over 75 years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has bolstered American power and shape the world order as we know it. Here is U.S. President Harry Truman at the founding of NATO in 1949. In this pact, we hope to create a shield against aggression and the fear of aggression, a bulwark which will permit us to get on with the real business of government and society, the business of achieving a fuller and happier life for all our citizens. But under President Trump, NATO's future is uncertain. Here's Trump on Fox News on April 12th. Now, we have to re-examine NATO because they weren't there for us.

1:03And let me tell you, and I've said this for 25 years, they weren't there for us and they won't be there for us. The United States has spent the better part of a year telling allies, you're on your own. President Trump has threatened to annex Greenland, the sovereign territory of NATO ally Denmark, and he launched a war in Iran without consulting NATO allies. Now the president is asking for help securing the Strait of Hormuz, and European countries are saying, no way. Later, we talk about what Trump ally Viktor Orban's defeat in the Hungarian elections means for NATO and global security. But first, how is the U.S.

1:36and Israel's war with Iran testing the alliance? And how would a U.S. withdrawal from NATO reshape global power dynamics? I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A Podcast. We'll be back with more after this short break. Stay with us.

1:53This week on Up First, the Trump administration and Iran do not have a peace deal. Now the president says the Strait of Hormuz is under a U.S. blockade. What that means for the ceasefire in Iran remains to be seen. And what it means for gas prices? Those will likely continue to climb. Follow the latest developments. We'll have them every morning on Up First. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the 1A podcast. We're talking about the U.S. relationship with NATO under President Trump's second term. Joining us from Florida is Ambassador Kurt Volker. He served as U.S.

2:30Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations from 2017 to 2019 and as U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 2008 to 2009. He's also a distinguished fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis. Ambassador Volker, welcome to the program. Thank you so much. Good to be with you. And also with us is foreign correspondent Laura Jakes. She joins us from Rome. She covers military deterrence and European security for The New York Times. Laura, it's great to have you with us. Thanks for having me. So, Laura, we heard Trump talking on Sunday there. What's the very latest we're hearing from the president about NATO this week?

3:04Well, he's been saying, why should we be spending trillions of dollars on NATO if they're not going to be with us in the Strait of Hormuz? And it's important to remember that the United States is not paying trillions of dollars to NATO. It's spending about$1 trillion on its own Pentagon, on the American military, and its own security. What the United States pays to NATO is less than a billion dollars in direct funding. That's about 15 % of a money pot that all 32 members of NATO contribute to. But more broadly, as President Trump talks about NATO, it has just been striking to listen to this play out sitting here in Europe.

3:43NATO is not some external organization to which the United States is a benevolent donor to further security in Europe and Canada. This is really not a NATO versus the U.S. type of situation. As you played during the Harry Truman comments from 1949, NATO was created in Washington. The United States is a huge player in NATO with huge power in NATO, and as such, historically, it's been the United States that calls most of the shots, the United States who largely sets NATO policy. The one time Article 5 was invoked, this is kind of the backbone of NATO, the mutual defense clause that says an attack on one is considered an attack on all, was by the United States after 9-11.

4:28But Ambassador, Trump's disdain for NATO is not new. Remind us where his criticisms began. President Trump's animosity is, as we just heard from Laura, it's not really grounded in what NATO actually is. So NATO is a collective defense organization for the North Atlantic area by treaty. That's what it's supposed to be. So if anyone attacks a NATO ally, we all respond, and therefore nobody attacks a NATO ally, so it creates peace. That's the purpose of NATO. President Trump is looking at allies not as members of NATO. He's looking at Italy. He's looking at the UK. He's looking at Germany and saying, you know, we help you, you help us.

5:10And it's whatever Trump wants. It's, you know, I want to go attack Iran. I want you to come help me. There's nothing about NATO that talks about, you know, what you do outside of the North Atlantic area. And if you do want help like that, you need to talk to people, you need to consult, you need to develop a common goal, a common plan. And we haven't done any of that. So his frustration is more at a human level, gee, I thought they were supposed to help us. They're supposed to be our friends and they're not helping, having really nothing to do with NATO at all. But, Laura, it's important to note that President Trump has criticized the amount of money NATO allies have contributed to the alliance.

5:50And we've seen some changes there after his criticisms. Just explain a little bit about what we're seeing NATO allies invest in that alliance now. Sure, if your listeners can bear with some kind of sticky ways of how NATO explains all of this. So basically, under NATO guidelines, each member state is supposed to, up until last year, spend 2 % of their GDP on national defense. That was the benchmark set in 2014. As of last year, only two-thirds of the alliance had met that. They'd had 20-odd, I'm sorry, 10-odd years to meet that benchmark, and they had not. President Trump came into office in 2025, although we heard it during his first term in office as well.

6:41He wanted allies, mostly in Europe, to spend more. And so he said everybody needs to spend 5 % of their GDP on national defense. It should be noted that at the time that this was happening, the United States itself was not spending 5 % of its GDP on national defense. I see that Secretary Hegseth has proposed a$1.5 trillion defense budget for 2027. If this, in fact, is passed, then the United States will hit that benchmark, but it's not there yet. But what this has done is created some divisions inside of NATO because, you know, let's face it, there are a lot of competing interests for funding throughout NATO countries and indeed throughout the world.

7:24Money that is spent on defense can't necessarily go into education or health care or housing issues, all of which are becoming huge, or have been, huge domestic issues with huge political ramifications across Europe. So the countries have tried to get there. They have 10 years to hit that 5 % benchmark. Some countries are already saying, no, we can't, we won't. And some countries are saying, we're already there. But it is not going to be an across-the-board compliance, no matter how much NATO's leadership wants to present to President Trump that the alliance is trying to step up and meet his demands.

8:10Well, I want to focus in on the war in Iran. The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on February 28th. After the war began, President Trump turned to NATO for support, but those members have not been unified in their response to his demands. Some countries have allowed the U.S. to use their bases and airspace to support operations in Iran. Others, like Spain and Italy, did not. Now Britain and France are refusing to help the U.S. blockade the Strait of Hormuz. So, Ambassador, having played the role you have. What do you make of this mixed response from allies to the U.S.'s request for help? What does it say about the view of the U.S.

8:48as a trusted partner? Well, there's a couple of pieces to that. One of them, to answer your question, viewing the U.S. as a trusted partner, they do count on the U.S. for security in Europe. But they remember just back in January, President Trump was talking about taking over part of a NATO country's territory, Greenland, and even willing to use force to do so, or at least not ruling it out. So that is very jarring to Europe. And then when President Trump launches these attacks against Iran, they had no idea this was coming. They were not consulted. There was no discussion at NATO. There was no operational plan, nothing at all.

9:29And then President Trump says, I don't need you, but you weren't there. It's very confusing to them. What do you actually want us to do? and they did, over the past couple of weeks, say, look, okay, let's get past our initial surprise and emotion. We actually do have a shared interest in the free flow of energy through the Persian Gulf, free shipping in the Persian Gulf. So we would be prepared to support an operation that would ensure that, that would secure shipping through the Persian Gulf. And President Trump had been asking for that. He said, you know, help us do an operation to escort vessels or to get, you know, get shipping moving.

10:10And then as they're putting that together, the British foreign secretary chairs a conference call of 40 countries to say, all right, let's work on what an operation like that would be. President Trump turns around and says, no, I'm going to blockade the Persian Gulf. So for European allies, free flow of shipping, helping secure things. Yes, they can do that, their publics can support that. But then to go around and engage in an act of war, which would be a blockade, is quite a turnaround for them, and their publics are not prepared for that. So the goalposts seem to keep shifting for them. It's very unclear what the U.S.

10:48wants them to do, and yet their interests are engaged and they do want to align themselves. And it's just been very difficult for them to do that. And meanwhile, as you pointed out, President Trump keep saying it's not enough, it's not enough. Laura, very briefly, what do we know about how Americans across the political spectrum view NATO and its value? Well, across the political spectrum and in Congress, there is wide bipartisan support for NATO and the United States staying in NATO. And to get out of NATO, any president would have to seek congressional support. And there's nothing to indicate that he would have that currently.

11:25I just also wanted to jump on something that Kurt said. Regarding Europe, European leaders saw the war against Iran as largely unlawful and unnecessary. Having said that, they have said that they will support opening the strait once hostilities are over. Well, we have to head to a quick break, but before we go, read in Florida emails. If I were president on day one, I would apologize to our NATO allies and reestablish our leadership position in the alliance. I would drastically cut military aid to countries that commit war crimes and dedicate more to Ukraine as it defends itself against Europe's and America's most dangerous adversary.

12:04When we come back, Hungary's election results and what it means for NATO. That's just ahead.

12:14Let's get back into our conversation. We're discussing the strained NATO alliance. Is it a rough patch or the end of an era? Jim in Massachusetts writes, NATO's been working well for decades. Our NATO allies came to our alliance on 9-11. The treaty is working fine. Don't let Trump hand over Europe to Putin. Thanks for that message. Now, last week, NATO chief Mark Ruda met with President Trump in Washington. Here he is on CNN. This was a meeting between friends because we like each other. I really admire his leadership. And Lara Ruda is called the Trump whisperer, but he's also been criticized within NATO for his friendly approach to the president.

12:53How are NATO member countries talking about the best approach to this administration? Well, it's really shifted over the last year and a half, I would say. At first, people understood why Ruta was kind of cozying up to Trump. The idea was that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. and so we saw Ruta be very profusive in his support for President Trump. I mean, you just heard him there saying that this was a meeting amongst friends at the White House last week when in fact I think all indications were that it was a very terse and tense meeting between the two leaders. And after President Trump started speaking about his desire to overtake Greenland, whether by military force or otherwise, it called into question, does NATO do, actually, do European leaders need to take kind of a harsher, tougher approach with President Trump to kind of set some lines and say, listen, this is not the way that you treat friends and partners.

13:59So the jury is out on which approach is going to be better or more successful. One certainly could argue that Mark Root's approach with his kind of handling Trump with kid gloves has not been as effective as perhaps he would have hoped. Ambassador, I'm going to tap into your experience here because allies have lived through the first Trump administration. They saw that administration's decisions to, you know, in the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. Then the Biden administration's efforts to reestablish some of those commitments. But now President Trump is back in office.

14:41He's withdrawn the U.S. from dozens of international organizations and treaties, including the World Health Organization and for a second time, the Paris Climate Agreement. Broadly speaking, how are NATO allies thinking about the leadership of the United States? The fact that, yes, there can be a new president every four years. But I think there's been this sense that there has been some type of consistency across those presidencies, even as parties changed. How are they viewing it now? Well, it's a really mixed picture. And I think Laura did a good job of describing some of the European attitudes.

15:23But I would also say that those issues that you raise, those are policy choices of the Trump administration. European countries make their own policy choices, and it depends who they elect as leaders as well. For 16 years, we just had Viktor Orban in power, and I guess we're going to talk about that, and he made his policy choices. So they're not necessarily connecting, say, the U.S. position on the World Health Organization to European security and to NATO. They do view NATO as important. They want to keep the U.S. in. It's vital for their interest. They have the biggest war in Europe going on right now with Russia's war on Ukraine.

16:04So that's one thing. And then the choices of the Trump administration are another. They don't have a warm, fuzzy feeling toward President Trump, as Laura was describing. I would argue, though, that Mark Vuta's approach to President Trump has been the right one. I think European leaders ought to be grateful to him because he is keeping that connectivity with a U.S. administration that is very difficult for them to stay connected with. And for example, when President Trump finally wound down his rhetoric on Greenland in January, around the time of the Davos meetings, it was with Mark Rutte that he did that.

16:43It was not with the Prime Minister of Denmark, for example. So I think that that approach is important. There was a NATO Secretary General, Lord Carrington, who once said that his job is to be squarely in the middle of the Atlantic, which means his job is to be cold, wet, and lonely. But Laura, I think that that really lays out the significance of the U.S.'s role in NATO, that you have Mark Ruda really trying to keep the U.S. president happy, even as he's being criticized by other NATO members. uh sure um but at the same time europe is trying to figure out what happens if trump does either withdraw all the united states from nato which as i said earlier he just can't do with the snap of his fingers or if he does what some people have described as kind of a soft exit which would be to withdraw American troops, weapons, presence from Europe.

17:52And sure, that could probably happen. But the United States stands to lose a lot, even with that kind of soft exit from NATO. There are about 70 ,000 American troops currently in Europe. They provide a jumping-off point to quickly respond to crises in Europe and the Middle East by sending weapons and troops very, very quickly. They gather intelligence close to Russia's border and close to North Africa. And they are able to secure trade routes in the Arctic and the Mediterranean Sea. And as we know, that's getting all the more important as China's maritime presence and exports surge. And most of all, they represent this huge deterrence force and they project American power to the rest of the world by being there.

18:40Well, we got this from John who writes, NATO is not really a defense organization. It has served as a block to maintain the economic and geopolitical fruits of Western European and U.S. imperialism. Ambassador Volker, your response to that? Well, I'd say that that's simply wrong. It is a military organization, a defense organization. It's what the treaty says. The treaty is presuming that the countries of the North Atlantic area are democracies and market economies, although we've had hiccups in that process as well with a coup in Greece or with a dictator in Portugal at one time. But no, NATO is fundamentally about security.

19:22And then our interests do differ when it comes to other things in the world. European allies did not go with the United States to Vietnam. We did not fight with the French in Algeria. We did, however, have a shared interest in security of the United States. And after the U.S. went into Afghanistan without NATO, after a few years when there was a need for a peacekeeping operation, the ISAF operation, we did build that out and NATO allies did join and support that effort. And similar thing with, say, Kosovo or Bosnia, NATO helped provide power projection in those areas for security relevant to Europe, even though it's not required by the treaty.

20:09We also got this question from Kathy in Ann Arbor, Michigan, who asks, what exactly does NATO spend its money on? Is it low on funds? I mean, Laura, I think we're getting a sense of that from the ambassador, but can you talk about the financial health of the alliance? Well, the financial health of the alliance depends on the financial health of each country that's a member. Again, the money that, when we talk about this 5 % GDP on national defense, that's on national defense. I think it's about$6 billion, I think, don't quote me on that exact number, that NATO requires for kind of its overhead, for its joint funding, for some of its military kind of planning and command and control.

20:56But the bulk of funding that goes, that is, quote unquote, NATO, is actually national defense spending by each of the countries. This is money that each country would be spending on its own militaries and defense anyway. Well, I want to bring another voice into the conversation. Anne Applebaum is a journalist and historian. She writes for The Atlantic, and she's also a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins University and the School of Advanced International Studies. Anne, welcome back to the program. Thanks for having me. Well, as we've noted, the U.S. isn't the only country grappling with its relationship to NATO and Europe.

21:35This week, Hungary ousted its longtime leader, Viktor Orban. Now, during his 16 years in power, Orban dismantled safeguards in Hungary's democracy to President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He was a reliable ally. He was a thorn in Europe's side. He blocked votes on aid for Ukraine, vetoed key decisions. But on Sunday, Peter Magyar defeated Orban by an overwhelming margin. Hungarians turned out in the largest numbers since the fall of communism in 1989. So, Anne, first, what does this outcome mean for Hungary? For Hungary, it's a transition on the scale of 1989. Viktor Orban has held power for 16 years, and in the course of doing so, he did his very best to create a one-party state.

22:21So his party occupied the bureaucracy, the judiciary. He built a group of oligarchs who were reliant on government money and who in turn funded foundations and universities and media, I should say, that were close to Fidesz, Orban's party, and promoted it. He built a network of think tanks in Europe and elsewhere. He built this state that was designed never to lose an election. And one of the things that seems to have happened is that he didn't expect the result to be as decisive as it was. And he didn't have a plan for what to do when that happened. And so he did resign. I presume he'll continue trying to regain power.

23:04But for Hungarians, especially younger Hungarians who don't remember any other leader, it feels like a revolution. Now, the focus of this conversation is on NATO. So, Anne, what does new leadership in Hungary mean for the country's relationship to NATO? It's also quite a profound transition. So for the last several years, the Hungarians have played the role of Russian voice, or if you want to be more unpleasant, Russian puppet in Europe. The Hungarians, as you said, they've blocked European Union sanctions on Russia. They've blocked European Union funding for Ukraine. They've been a voice really against Ukraine and for Russia and all kinds of other fora.

23:45I mean, I suppose this mattered more inside Europe than it did in NATO. I mean, as your guests were just explaining, NATO funding is done country by country. There is no, I mean, there is a NATO budget, but it isn't the most important thing. Whereas in the European Union, there is a joint budget. There are joint decisions taken about funding. And Hungary was able, especially recently, to block that. Actually, this became a big issue in the campaign, especially towards the end. There were some leaked transcripts and audio of telephone conversations between the Hungarian foreign minister and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and even between Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin.

24:26And they were on the lines of the Hungarian foreign minister explaining what had just happened at a NATO summit or an EU summit, excuse me, and saying, I'll send you the documents about that. And seeming to be agreeing policy, Orbán's conversation with Putin, he said something about Hungary being a mouse to Russia's lion. And this became very offensive inside Hungary. And one of the things that happened in the last couple weeks of the campaign is people started showing up at demonstrations and shouting, Russians go home in Hungarian, which is the same slogan that was used in 1956 when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary.

25:03So this feels this is a was a big part, again, of that revolutionary feeling. Hungarians want to be part of Europe. They want to be part of the European alliance. They want to have a normal relationship with the rest of the continent, and they want to support Ukraine and not Russia. Well, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed Orbán's defeat as a victory for Europe. The people of Hungary have spoken, and they have reclaimed their European path. It is a victory for fundamental freedoms. And I really want to say to the Hungarian people, you've done it again, against all odds. like you did in 1956 when you courageously stood up, like you did it in 1981, 89, when you were the first to cut the barbed wire that was dividing our continent.

25:53So with this result, our union is stronger. Our union is more united. We'll talk about that a little bit more, but I first, Anne, want you to zoom out a little bit for us. Right-wing leaders around the world or generally hostile to alliances like NATO. And we've seen right-wing leaders around the world rally around Orban ahead of the election. Marie Le Pen of France, Matteo Salvini of Italy, just last week, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance traveled to Budapest to rally for Orban. What do you think his defeat represents for the future of the far-right and key global alliances? So Orban presented himself to that group and to the world as the leader of an illiberal democracy.

26:37And that was the language that he used. That's his word, his expression. And by that, he meant that he was democratically elected, but he was someone who was willing to take over the institutions of the state and also to use state power to impose his cultural views, to impose his views on, to control the media, to control universities, control other sources of different opinion and other political parties as well. And he presented this as a model, as a way to run a kind of new illiberal democracy as opposed to a liberal democracy. And he had many followers. And you saw many of the followers come to Budapest in the last few weeks to support him or else they did so online.