United States | Could the US leave a NATO country in trouble, as Trump threatens?

of the United States of the former president Donald Trump's the latest threat to leave an attacked NATO country without protection is nothing new.

The one who spoke at the campaign event on Saturday Trump saidthat the United States should not protect NATO countries from Russian attack that do not pay the alliance's required share of their defense spending.

Researcher of US domestic and foreign policy at the Foreign Policy Institute Maria Lindén says Trump has consistently disparaged US allies in his public appearances.

According to Lindén, the essential thing is that Trump brings up his old NATO speeches right now. It says that Trump's views are unchanged, even though the world political situation has changed.

North America research professor Benita Heiskanen The University of Turku's John Morton Center emphasizes that Trump spoke at the election campaign event on Saturday.

In his speech, he courted voters who are fed up with the United States funding other countries' war efforts. For example, US support for Ukraine is at stake.

“In the United States, there is an idea that we are paying for all the wars when there are problems in our own country,” says Heiskanen.

Lindén says that the view is shared across party lines: Europeans don't spend enough money on their defense spending, and that's unfair. Frustration with supporting other countries fits well with Trump's America First mindset.

Heiskanen estimates that Trump wants to provoke with his election campaign.

On the other hand, the speeches do not differ from the former president's previous criticism of NATO. Already as president, Trump emphatically demanded that the European NATO countries bear more responsibility for their defense.

of The New York Times as president, Trump expressed several times in private conversations that he would like the United States to leave NATO.

Politico has again said that Trump was sworn in at the economic forum in 2020 as the president of the EU Commission For Ursula von der Leyenthat the United States would not defend Europe militarily.

“Trump is of the opinion that the task of the United States is not to save other countries,” says Heiskanen.

Saturday according to Lindén, the speeches are
a reminder that Trump still wants to leave NATO.

United States Congress accepted in December a law that prevents the president from withdrawing the country from NATO without Senate approval or a new law.

“Whether or not the president can nominally pull the United States out of NATO ultimately doesn't matter if the president nullifies NATO's security guarantees by announcing that the United States will not respect them,” says Lindén.

The president has other ways. Lindén says that the president could, for example, move US troops out of Europe, even if the country is nominally a member of NATO.

The possible return of Donald Trump, who campaigned in South Carolina on Saturday, has raised concerns about the future of NATO. Picture: SAM WOLFE/Reuters

What What do Trump's speeches mean for NATO's deterrent effect and for Finland, which has just breathed a sigh of relief after joining the military alliance?

Lindén says that according to the most optimistic estimates, the Russian president Vladimir Putin the threshold to attack a NATO country in Europe would not disappear overnight, even if Trump is elected president. Trump is unpredictable, and Putin knows it.

According to the most gloomy estimates, the deterrent effect can be reset by the president's speeches.

“I would say myself that the truth is somewhere [näiden arvioiden] in between”, says Lindén.

According to Lindén, the glimmer of hope for Finland may be that Finland has taken care of its own defense, and thus is not one of the countries despised by Trump.