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NATO allies brace for possible Trump 2024 victory
London — With six months to go until the presidential election, America’s NATO allies are planning to boost their defense spending ahead of the potential disruption of a second Donald Trump presidency.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is preparing a funding plan to try to insulate the 75-year-old military partnership from any changing political realities that might affect the alliance, according to Oana Lungescu, who until last year was the longtime lead NATO spokesperson for Stoltenberg.
“It is important to have predictability both for allies and for Ukraine,” Lungescu told CBS News. “This [plan] relieves the U.S. of some of its organizational burden while still maintaining full oversight,” she said.
Stoltenberg has proposed a $107 billion, five-year package of military aid for Ukraine that would give the broader alliance a more direct role in funding, Reuters reported last month.
Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Under the plan, European allies would create a shared Ukraine aid fund and increase their contributions to Kyiv’s war effort, reducing the sizable funding provided by the U.S.
Trump’s first term as president demonstrated that the 2024 presumptive Republican nominee is unafraid to upend the NATO alliance. Trump shocked America’s allies with his open criticism of the failure of some NATO members to meet defense funding commitments, and the Trump campaign has said that calling on allies to increase their defense spending is a policy that a future Trump White House would aggressively pursue.
In an emailed statement, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “President Trump got our allies to increase their NATO spending by demanding they pay up, but Crooked Joe Biden went back to letting them take advantage of the American taxpayer.”
“When President Trump returns to the Oval Office, he will restore peace and rebuild American strength and deterrence on the world stage,” Leavitt said.
Lungescu said that the strategy proposed by Stoltenberg would address Trump’s complaint that NATO allies aren’t doing enough to share the economic burden. At the same time, Stoltenberg is trying to protect Ukraine from the kind of severe delays in Congress — mostly driven by House Republicans — that halted U.S. aid and weapons funding for the first half of the year. NATO allies are also increasing their own individual defense spending, Lungescu told CBS News, although she also pointed out that American presidents dating back to Eisenhower have criticized NATO partners for not contributing enough.
NATO guidelines say member states should commit a minimum of 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to defense spending to continue to ensure the Alliance’s military readiness.
By NATO’s own admission, in terms of GDP, the wealth of its members “nearly equals that of the U.S.” But “non-U.S. Allies together spend less than half of what the United States spends on defense,” according to NATO’s website.
As of 2023, only 10 of the 30 other NATO allies had met the 2% spending commitment, excluding the U.S., though two-thirds of the NATO allies are expected to meet the target by the end of the year.
“I think by the time we get to the Washington NATO summit in July, we will have updated figures and will be in an even better position in terms of significantly increased defense spending,” Lungescu predicted.
Trump vows to not protect NATO allies who don’t raise their spending
In February, former President Trump said at a campaign rally in South Carolina that he’d encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies who don’t pay their fair share into the Western military alliance.
Referring to a conversation with an unnamed leader of an NATO country who asked him, “If we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us,” Trump said he replied, “Absolutely not.”
Since Trump left office in Jan. 2021, his former national security adviser, John Bolton, has said the former president had been close to withdrawing the U.S.from NATO at the end of a 2018 summit and said another Trump term presents an existential threat to the trans-Atlantic alliance.
“Many [NATO] countries owe us a tremendous amount of money… The United States has paid and stepped up like nobody,” Trump said at a July 2018 NATO gathering, adding that “something has to be done.”
Will Trump withdraw U.S. from NATO?
“I think Trump will cause significant damage in a second term, damage that in some cases will be irreparable,” Bolton wrote in his 2020 memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.” He said he believes Trump intends to pull America out of the alliance if reelected.
“I think he fully intends to do that,” Bolton wrote. “I think that would be a catastrophic decision for America and a whole host of other things. It’s a very grim prospect to see Trump in for a second term.”
“I think that actually the biggest danger he [Trump] is for NATO is his unpredictability,” Ben Hodges, a former commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe, told CBS News. “The urgency of defense investment is even greater if Trump turns out to be not as dependable as every other American president has been.”
Hodges said that a way to ensure that NATO allies maintain smooth diplomatic relations with any incoming Trump administration would be for America’s allies to honor their commitments and increase their defense spending now.
But he’s skeptical that Mr. Trump would move to withdraw the U.S. from NATO, pointing to a law passed in Congress last year that prohibits the president from withdrawing from NATO or using any appropriated funds for that purpose without approval from lawmakers.
War game simulates NATO collapse in a second Trump term
A recent war game run by Finley Grimble, a former intelligence analyst for the U.K. Ministry of Defense, found that in the event of a second Trump presidency, the alliance would be vulnerable to collapse, even if the U.S. doesn’t withdraw from NATO.
Grimble’s war game ran a scenario in which Trump wins the election. The new administration immediately attempts to unilaterally broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. The talks break down and Trump then slashes foreign aid to Ukraine.
In the absence of having the congressional majority needed to formally withdraw the U.S. from the NATO treaty, the Trump White House then significantly reduces U.S. participation in NATO exercises, including moving 50% of America’s military presence in Europe, to the Indo-Pacific region.
Grimble told CBS News that his analysis showed such a scenario would leave NATO a “hollowed out, unprepared shell” by pursuing a policy of NATO “dormancy.”
In Grimble’s war game, Trump takes advantage of NATO’s command structure in which the supreme allied commander of NATO forces in Europe is always a U.S. officer and is responsible for the overall command of NATO military operations.
“NATO has these war-fighting plans that are ready to roll out… but the supreme allied commander in Europe would answer to Donald Trump,” Grimble told CBS News.
“You tell [the NATO supreme allied commander] to stop cooperating, to stop enacting the plans, and the whole thing falls apart. And that’s what Trump did in the game,” he said.
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Transcript: Ret. Gen. Frank McKenzie on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Oct. 6, 2024
The following is a transcript of an interview with retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Oct. 6, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: To discuss the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, we go now to retired General Frank McKenzie, who was the former commander of US forces in the Middle East. It’s good to have you back with us, General, we saw–
GENERAL FRANK MCKENZIE: Good to be with you, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We saw the US and Israel say there would be severe consequences for what Iran did with those 180 missiles fired at Israel, President Biden said he doesn’t support an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and he’d be thinking instead about alternative targets to oil fields. What do you expect the US to do, and what do you expect to happen in the next few days?
GEN. MCKENZIE: Well, Margaret, let’s begin by saying Iran is the country that’s in a corner. Their strike against Israel several nights ago was not particularly successful. Their principal ally in the region, Hezbollah has been decapitated, and its own offensive capability is gravely limited. Hezbollah’s is gravely limited. So Iran’s on their back heel. Israel has a lot of choices here. They can choose for something that would be very escalatory in terms of a strike against the Supreme Leader himself, perhaps, or against the nuclear program, or against the oil infrastructure, or they could look at military intelligence targets. They have a wide variety of options that they can choose from. They have the capability to execute most of those attacks, I will say this, the nuclear target is a very difficult target. It’s large and complex. I held the plans for that when I was a central command commander. I’m very familiar with it. There are a lot of other alternatives to that target that perhaps you could go after first, then hold out in case you get into an escalatory ladder with the Iranians. But the Israelis are certainly going to hit back, and I predict it will be larger than the very restrained, very modulated response that we saw in April after the first large Iranian attack on Israel.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You heard the Republican Chair of the House Intelligence Committee not advocate for an attack on nuclear facilities, but say it shouldn’t be taken off the table. It’s been widely reported for some time, General that it’s only the United States who could effectively take out the underground facilities that Iran has. Does that remain the case?
GEN. MCKENZIE: Well, let me begin by saying you should never take a potential target off the menu. You want your adversary to have to plan to defend everything. So giving-giving them assistance and not knowing and not-not having to defend against a particular target is probably not the best way to establish this kind of deterrence. Having said that, the Iranian nuclear target is a very difficult target, we have special capabilities that allow us to get at it. The Israelis do not have all of those capabilities. They can certainly hurt this target if they choose to, if they choose to strike it. But again, because of its size, complexity and scope and how it’s expanded over the last 10 years, it’s a very difficult target to take out. It would be very resource intensive, and I would just, I would argue, just from a purely military point of view, there are perhaps targets that are more productive to hit in an initial response.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you want to give us some options?
GEN. MCKENZIE: Well, again, you know, we talked about some of them. I think oil infrastructure is certainly a possibility. And the oil infrastructure can be very broad. You can look at refineries, you can look at storage facilities, you can look at locations where the oil is unloaded onto ships. So within the oil target, it’s not monolithic. You can- you can be escalatory or less escalatory, as you look at targets there. That might be something to take a look at, but I’ll tell you the other thing, Margaret, is the Iranians made a big show of targeting the Mossad headquarters in urban Tel Aviv. Israel certainly has the capability to go after IRGC, Islamic Republican Guard Corps headquarters and intelligence buildings all around Tehran or anywhere else. Again, as we know from April, Israel has the ability to operate not with impunity, but with great force over Iran at a time and place of their choosing. And I’m sure they’re thinking about all those options right now.
MARGARET BRENNAN: There’s also that risk of unintended consequences, since you’ve characterized Iran as cornered here, are you at all concerned that this could be the kind of event that would trigger them to actually pursue a nuclear weapon? They’ve given themselves options, but they’ve never fully pursued it in the way that US intelligence has said the supreme leader would have to make the ultimate decision to do. Could this be the trigger event?
GEN. MCKENZIE: Margaret, it’s always been my belief that the Iranians flirt with breakout, with getting fissile material to create a bomb in order to extract concessions from us, because we dance, we’re very eager to come to an agreement with them on the nuclear issue, so they know they can get stuff from us. They also know if they cross that line, you can’t go back. That’s a Rubicon that can’t be recrossed. But even if they, even if they do develop the fissile material, which they can do, within a matter of days or weeks, they still have a delivery problem. They’ve got to create a missile and an entry system that will allow it to take the missile to Tel Aviv or whatever target they choose. That’s a matter of many months, and that’s the valley of death for Iran, because during that period of time, they will have declared nuclear, and they will be vulnerable. It’s not a physics problem, then it’s an aeronautical engineering problem, and the aeronautical engineering systems in Iran are going to be vulnerable to attack. So it’s not as easy as you might think for them to just declare, you know, we’re going nuclear, or to go nuclear. They’ve got to balance a number of things as they do that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Important context. If I can ask you, sir, former President Trump, as you know, faces an ongoing assassination threat as revenge for ordering the killing of Qassim Soleimani, that Iranian general. You played a key role in that, and I know you face threats as well. Mr. Trump recently said, big threats on my life by Iran. The entire US military is watching and waiting. The Biden White House has condemned the threats, but some Republicans say it’s not loud enough. How do you think this should be messaged? Do you think Iran is getting the message not to go through with this?
GEN. MCKENZIE: So whenever we look at Iran, we need to look at what’s their basic motivation. The principal goal of Iranian statecraft is regime preservation. They view the election of President Trump as a direct threat to that regime preservation. So I have no doubt believing that Iran is very active in its attempts to go after the former president, as well as other officials, of which I am keenly, personally interested as well. But I think that-that’s what’s driving their behavior. Is desperation. Margaret, it’s actually the same sort of desperation that drove the massive attack on Israel of three or four nights ago. They’re in a corner and they really don’t have any good options, but they don’t want to sit still and do nothing. They view President Trump as worse than the alternative that could be elected.
MARGARET BRENNAN: General, thank you for your analysis.
The following is a transcript of an interview with Sen. Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Oct. 6, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Joining us now is Arizona’s Democratic Senator, Mark Kelly. He’s in Detroit this morning on the campaign trail for the Harris campaign. Good morning to you, Senator.
SEN. MARK KELLY: Good morning, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to talk to you about Arizona, but let’s start in Michigan, which is where you are right now. And it is going to be such a key state to a potential Harris or Trump victory. Vice President Harris is facing challenges among black men, working class people, as well as the Muslim and Arab populations skeptical of the White House support for Israel’s wars. What are you hearing on the ground there from voters?
SEN. KELLY: Well, my wife, Gabby Giffords, and I have been out here for a couple days. We’ve been campaigning across the country, Michigan, I’ve been in North Carolina, Georgia as well. I’ll be back to Arizona here soon. The vice president was out here speaking to Muslim organizations and the Arab community about what is at stake in this election and addressing the concerns that they have. What we’re hearing, issues about the economy, about gun violence, about, you know, supporting American families and the difference between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. You know, Kamala Harris, who has a vision for the future of this country, Donald Trump, who just wants to drag us backwards.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Today in Dearborn, Michigan, there’s a funeral service for an American man who was killed in Lebanon by an Israeli airstrike. It just underscores how that community you’re talking about out in Michigan feel some of what’s happening in a personal way to their community. Given how close this race is, do you think this war and the expectation it could escalate could cost Democrats both a seat in the Senate and potentially the presidency?
SEN. KELLY: Margaret, nobody wants to see escalation and it’s tragic when any innocent person, whether it’s an American or Palestinian, lose their life in a conflict. Tomorrow’s one year since October 7th, when Israel was violently attacked. Israel has a right to defend itself, not only from Hamas, but from Hezbollah and from the Iranians. But, you know, I and my wife, you know, we feel for the community here who’s been affected by this. And that’s why the vice president was out here earlier, a few days ago, meeting with that community.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But it’s a live issue.
SEN. KELLY: Yeah, sure. I mean, there is an ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Israel is, you know, fighting a war now on, I think it’s fair to say, two fronts and then being attacked by the Iranians as well. And, they- they need to defend themselves, and we need to support our Israeli ally. At the same time, when women and children lose their life, innocent people in a conflict, it is- it is tragic.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You do sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee and so I know you know how intense the efforts are by foreign actors to try to manipulate voters going into November. Just this Friday, Matthew Olsen, the lead on election threats at the Department of Justice, told CBS the Russians are, quote, highlighting immigration as a wedge issue. That is such a key issue in Arizona. Are you seeing targeted information operations really focusing in on Arizonans right now?
SEN. KELLY: Not only in Arizona, in other battleground states. It’s the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and it’s significant. And we need to do a better job getting the message out to the American people that there is a huge amount of misinformation. If you’re looking at stuff on Twitter, on TikTok, on Facebook, on Instagram, and it’s political in nature, and you may- might think that that person responding to that political article or who made that meme up is an American. It could be- it could look like a U.S. service member. There is a very reasonable chance I would put it in the 20 to 30% range, that the content you are seeing, the comments you are seeing, are coming from one of those three countries: Russia, Iran, China. We had a hearing recently, with the FBI director, the DNI, and the head of the National Security Agency. And we talked about this. And we talked about getting the word out. And it’s up to us, so thank you for asking me the question, because it’s up to us, the people who serve in Congress and the White House to get the information out there, that there is a tremendous amount of misinformation in this election, and it’s not going to stop on November 5th.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Understood. And we will do our best to help parse that for viewers. But on the topic of the border, President Biden did announce just this past week new regulations to keep in place that partial asylum ban that he rolled out back in June. That’s what’s credited with helping to bring down some of the border crossing numbers in recent weeks. It was supposed to be a temporary policy, dependent on how many people were crossing at a time. Do you think this is the right long term policy, or is this just a gimmick to bring down numbers ahead of the election?
SEN. KELLY: Well, the right long term policy is to do this through legislation. And we were a day or two away from doing that, passing strong border security legislation supported by the vice president, negotiated by the vice president, and the president and his Department of Homeland Security, with Democrats and Republicans–
MARGARET BRENNAN: But this is not legislation.
SEN. KELLY: –This is bipartisan. This isn’t. But the legislation was killed by Donald Trump. We were really close to getting it passed. That’s the correct way to do this. When you can’t do that, Margaret, when a former president interrupts the legislative process the way he did, which is the most hypocritical thing I’ve ever seen in my three and a half years in the Senate. After that happened, the only other option is executive actions. And this has gone from what was chaos and a crisis at our southern border to somewhat manageable. And if you’re the border- Border Patrol, you know, this is this- you need this. I mean, otherwise it is unsafe for Border Patrol agents, for CBP officers, for migrants, for communities in southern Arizona. So it’s unfortunate that this was the- these were the steps that had to be taken.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay.
SEN. KELLY: But that’s because the former president didn’t allow us to do this through legislation.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator, we have to leave it right there. Face the Nation will be right back.
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