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Can Trump Actually Quit NATO? We May Soon Find Out

Leaders are already preparing a fallback plan

On April 1, President Donald Trump told the Telegraph he’s “strongly considering” pulling the United States out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, calling the alliance a “paper tiger,” and tying that hostility explicitly to Europe’s refusal to back his ill-conceived war against Iran. Secretary of state Marco Rubio echoed that sentiment when Spain outright refused US military overflights tied to the Iran war. At the same time, defense secretary and middle school bully Pete Hegseth declined to reaffirm NATO’s collective defence guarantee when asked directly, saying the decision was “up to Trump.”

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Throughout 2025 and early 2026, you might have thought, perhaps optimistically, that the damage from those kinds of statements could be undone. It might take generations, but surely, someday, the US would regain the trust of friends and allies. That optimistic thinking, however, assumes that World War III doesn’t happen first.

So, could Trump unilaterally pull the US out of NATO? Congress tried to lock this door after Trump’s first term. Section 1250A of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act says the president may not suspend, terminate, or withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty without two-thirds Senate consent or an act of Congress.

Why would Congress do this? Doesn’t the US constitution already require two-thirds Senate consent for treaties? Yes, Article II clearly says how the US enters a treaty: the president makes treaties “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate,” with two-thirds of senators present concurring. But the constitution is silent on how the US withdraws from one.

So, the 2024 NDAA rule was Congress trying to fill a gap and block a president from claiming, “Sure, the Senate helps me get into treaties, but I can get out of them alone.” Also, NATO’s own treaty gives a one-year notice window before withdrawal takes effect, so leaving wouldn’t be immediate—in theory.

All of this sounds reassuring, but it’s basically a home security sticker on a first-floor, single-pane window. Here’s the problem: a president doesn’t need a clean, lawful exit to damage deterrence. He can erode it in place. He can turn NATO into a shell company with a headquarters in Delaware, a shitty AI-generated logo, and a stock price in free fall.

He can slow-walk deployments, freeze planning, undercut exercises, refuse to reaffirm Article 5, and make every crisis feel conditional on what you’ve done for him lately.

If Trump actually tried an overt unilateral withdrawal and Congress fought back, that case would likely land at the Supreme Court faster than you can say “ground war in Iran.” And I’m not betting the mortgage that the current conservative majority court wakes up every morning asking how best to frustrate Trump’s Article II ambitions.

A presidential-power reading that favours unitary executive authority over statutory limits is a live option. But here’s the part that actually keeps me up at night, and I mean that less metaphorically than it sounds: A formal US withdrawal from NATO would be catastrophic. Markets freak out, Europe goes through a vulnerable transition period, and journalists take the word “historic” and run it into the ground with every Substack post.

But a half-detached America might actually be worse because it leaves NATO’s institutional shell standing while quietly hollowing out the confidence that made it matter at all.

NATO works because Article 5 is a promise backed by US nuclear assurance, strategic lift, intelligence, air and missile defence, maritime power, and the assumption that Washington won’t turn every emergency into a protection racket.

NATO........

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