Trump lashes out at Nato: will Europe stand up to him? – The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:11I think it's fair to say there's a rising sense bordering on outrage, really, and an absolute determination not to write Donald Trump a blank check. Whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, this is not our war, but we're not going to get dragged into it. The actual concrete implications of the war for Europe are very, very serious indeed. Donald Trump once again lashes out against NATO as attitudes in Europe harden against an unpredictable US ally. And as the UK moves for closer ties with Europe. From The Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hove. I'm joined by John Henley, The Guardians Europe correspondent.

0:56Joining us from Paris, John, thanks for coming back. It's lovely to see you again. So, I mean, obviously, we have heard attacks from Donald Trump towards NATO for many years now. It's not new to NATO allies, nor to the institution itself. But he has said this morning if he would reconsider US-NATO membership beyond the Iran war. And he said, oh, it's beyond reconsideration. I was never swayed by NATO. Putin knows that too, by the way. I mean, clearly, it's not the first time he's attacked NATO. But is there something different about this? Or do you think this is all part of a pressure campaign related to the Iran war?

1:36I mean, who knows what is going on in Donald Trump's head, really? I think, you know, as our colleague in Washington, David Smith, put it this week, I mean, he constructs a narrative. He kind of swears blind that it's true. And then he tries to basically browbeat the rest of the world into accepting it. And the problem is that with wars, you can't actually do that. Kind of objective reality does come into effect. So I'm sure this is part of a campaign to browbeat and accept the US's very longstanding European allies into accepting Donald Trump's version of reality. But for the time being, it's not happening.

2:21Yeah. And we're saying that Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, has also been stirring the pot. He told Fox News last night that the relationship between the US and NATO would need to be reexamined. And I guess, I mean, it seems like this is fundamental misunderstanding for the United States that NATO is a defensive alliance. Well, exactly. And that comes into force. Article 5 is when one NATO member is attacked. But it does not mean that NATO members are under some kind of moral obligation to join a war that they did not decide to engage in. Precisely. That's exactly right. And, you know, the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, in his media conference yesterday, said pretty much the same thing.

3:05He said, you know, we don't actually have much of an alliance if, you know, the members don't come to our help when we need it. And you kind of feel like saying, well, actually, we don't have much of an alliance either when one of the members actively threatens to attack another, you know, as Trump did with Greenland and Denmark. only a couple of months ago. Or indeed, we don't have much of an alliance, you could say, when Donald Trump accuses consistently America's European NATO allies of not coming to America's aid when they need it. Whereas in fact, the only one time that the US has triggered Article 5, NATO Article 5, the mutual defense clause, was after 9-11 and for the invasion of Afghanistan.

3:57And every European member state responded. And a lot of Europeans died in Afghanistan. So, you know, in between the threats and the insults, yeah, you're quite right to say, there's also a fundamental lack of understanding or at least, you know, whether they're pretending. I mean, they must understand what the actual basis of NATO is. You'd hope so, John. You'd hope so. That's the front they're putting across. Yeah. And there's also been this slightly churlish language from Trump towards Europe of, well, go get your own oil. We've got plenty. And he's upset, you know, again, about NATO allies and European governments being so reticent to join his campaign.

4:42Interesting today that Keir Starmer, the prime minister, has announced that the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, will be hosting a summit of international leaders to discuss plans to restore freedom, security in the Strait of Hamus. You know, which seems like quite a good counterpoint to this show of unity amongst European governments in Qantas to this type of language that we're hearing from the US. Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt at all that European resolve is kind of stiffening about this war. I mean, they remain quite divided in some aspects, but they were much more divided, the Europeans.

5:24And I would include the UK among the Europeans for the purposes of this. But, you know, so to start off with, I mean, Spain, for example, was a complete outlier a month ago. Spain said from the get-go, this is an illegal war. This is a unilateral war. We're having nothing to do with it. You're not going to be able to use our bases. Spain was alone on that. France was also pretty strong. Emmanuel Macron said, this is an illegal war. You can't use our air bases either. But Germany, Poland, Italy, others were much more nuanced and were saying, OK, maybe regime change in Tehran isn't such a bad thing.

6:03But that attitude has really been changing over the last couple of weeks since the blockage of the state of Pormuz, basically, and since it became clear quite how dramatic the economic and security consequences for Europe would be. But I think it's worth saying that, you know, so far at least, the Europeans have been absolutely clear that while many of them are very willing to take part in some kind of multilateral, as it were, peacekeeping operation in the Strait of Hormuz, it would have to be after a ceasefire and after the terms of a ceasefire were agreed. Emmanuel Macron very recently repeated that and confirmed there is no way the Europeans are going to go into the Strait of Hormuz in a military situation, you know, where the fighting is still going on.

6:53Yes, and has also blocked Israeli planes from flying weapons through its airspace. Italy has refused last minute permissions for US bombers to land in Sicily. as you say, Spain from the get-go has been very strong against the use of US-Israeli use of their air bases. I'm just wondering, John, you're in Paris, you speak to lots of interesting people within European governments. What kind of a sense you're getting about this hardening tone towards Trump? Because, you know, we're a decade in now. None of this is new. None of this is new. You're absolutely right. But there is a kind of, I think it's fair to say there's a rising sense of more than frustration.

7:36I mean, you know, kind of bordering on outrage, really, at what's been attempted here and an absolute determination this time not to give, not to write Donald Trump a blank check. I think that's the thing. And I think that comes from there are four or five kind of key reasons behind that. I mean, the first, obviously, I think, and that everybody says, is that, you know, we were not consulted. Second thing, there is still a complete confusion about what the actual aims of the war, of Trump's war are. You know, what is he actually trying to achieve? And behind that, a kind of general understanding or a general belief that this is a strategic error of historic proportions and a really stupid thing to have done.

8:25The third thing is Trump's, I think, personality himself and his ever-changing demands, his outbursts, his anger. The fact that this comes on top of the threats against Greenland, it also comes on top of the whole farce over around tariffs, trade tariffs. You don't know where he's coming from when he is just sort of essentially, you know, by turns insulting and attacking his supposed allies. And the final point, which I mentioned briefly before, is the economic consequences. Unless this resolves very fast, Europe is heading into a potential energy price shock, which most analysts seem to believe is the worst that the continent will ever have experienced, far worse than the 1970s.

9:12And so a potential vast economic shock on a par. Well, one analyst said to me yesterday that, you know, this is going to make COVID look like a kind of, you know, a walk in the park if it actually happens. So there's that. And plus, you know, a potential new migration crisis. The actual concrete implications of the war for Europe are very, very serious indeed. So none of that is much inclined to make European leaders very friendly towards Trump's demands. Well, fairly justifiably, John. And I suppose also, we talk about Europe, but there's of course 27 member states for whom they have very different national interests.

10:01We talk about the northern states who have this proximity to much of the volatility, the dangers that we're seeing in the world. But we also have the southern states who would be most impacted by any future migration crisis, as you say. So the European Union has this great challenge of balancing all of the concerns of those countries. And it struggles at the best of times to often be cohesive. It's never very cohesive. cohesive. And the group that you've left out of that, which is equally important, I think, and maybe kind of crucially so in terms of winning the argument, are the Central and European states, who are frantically reminding everybody that actually Europe's dominant, real, true crisis at the moment should be Ukraine and Russia.

10:55And the war in Iran is diverting attention, critically it's diverting enormous resources, US resources that could perhaps otherwise have been helping Ukraine. And I mean, Central and Eastern Europe has very real security concerns of its own, which are being completely undermined by this attack. Yeah, absolutely. And as you say, Ukraine at the forefront of everybody's minds as they try and navigate this deeply unpredictable precedent. John, thank you so much. It's great to see you. Pleasure. That's it for today. My huge thanks again to John Henley. You can keep up with his reporting over at theguardian.com as well as rolling coverage of the Iran war.

11:42Today on Focus will be back in your feeds tomorrow morning as usual. The latest will be back tomorrow night. And while we've got you, please do listen to a new series from Guardian Investigates called Off Duty, a seven-part series with reporter Melissa Segura. In 2011, a Chicago police officer was murdered. Police identified four suspects. Three confess, but the fourth refused to break. He embarked on a 12-year battle to prove his innocence against a system that refused to admit it might be wrong. Subscribe to The Guardian Investigates feed or listen wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff.

12:19It was produced by Bryony Moore. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin. And the lead producer was Zoe Hitch.

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