What do Trump's latest comments on leaving Nato mean for the alliance?

2 hours agoLyse DoucetChief international correspondentEPAThe 77-year-old NATO coalition now has 32 members, but the might of the US military matters immenselyOf all the warnings in President Trump's arsenal, quitting the NATO military alliance is among those he's wielded the most.Now he's doing it again.Asked by Britain's Telegraph newspaper if he is reconsidering US membership of NATO, he said: "Oh yes… I would say [it's] beyond reconsideration" – fuming again that his partners weren't joining America's military operations, alongside Israel, against Iran."I just think it should be automatic," he emphasised in his remarks to the paper.Trump's invective underlines again his misunderstanding of how this 32-member alliance works.NATO's Article 5 does commit it to collective defence. An attack against one member is deemed to be an attack against all but invoking this principle requires a consensus. And the 1949 treaty only referred to crises in Europe and North America.One ally after another has held back from joining a war they weren't consulted on, given they still don't understand its goals in the face of mixed messaging from the Trump administration.Article 5 has only been triggered once, in the wake of the September 11th attacks on the US in 2001.Trump also referenced Ukraine in the Telegraph, saying: "We've been there automatically, including Ukraine."After Russia's audacious full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the then-US President Joe Biden did take a leading role in shaping the response of individual Western governments because he believed President Putin's actions threatened them all. NATO, as an alliance, provided assistance but avoided the dangerous prospect of becoming directly involved as a party to this conflict.Even before Trump entered the White House in 2017, he repeatedly dismissed NATO as a "paper tiger," described it as "obsolete", and said that it was "costing a fortune" for the US.This year, he's mocked the alliance, saying Russia would have occupied all of Ukraine if the US had not been NATO's enforcer.Trump almost walked out in early 2019, during his first term in office."We saw clear signs that Trump was preparing to act on his threat," the former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wrote in his recent memoir, On my Watch.Stoltenberg recounted how he went on Fox News and credited Trump with pressuring NATO allies to increase their military spending.In his telling, Trump immediately acknowledged that praise on social media and then didn't make the speech the White House had reportedly drafted for a US pullout.At the centre of Trump's concerns was the 2014 agreement that countries should spend 2% of their GDP on defence; at the time, it was only described as a "guideline".Military spending has ramped up significantly by almost all NATO members, partly in response to Trump's threats, partly because of Russia's growing menace.This new crisis will again strengthen the resolve of European countries and Canada to bolster their own defences and depend on themselves for their own security. But there's still that cold hard fact that the might of the US military matters - immensely.The US's military budget now makes up some 62% percent of NATO's total defence spending and the Pentagon has assets and intelligence capabilities others still can't match.GettyTrump told Britain's Telegraph newspaper he was reconsidering the US's membership of NatoThis time, his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who calls himself a former supporter of the alliance, has also chimed in."I think there's no doubt, unfortunately, after this conflict is concluded we are going to have to re-examine that relationship," he told Fox News.Referring to US bases in Europe he said not using them "to defend America's interests" meant "NATO is a one-way street."Britain initially refused access to US warplanes but later changed tack, saying bases could be used for "defensive operations." That delay continues to be derided by Trump and his secretary of defence, the self-styled Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. They've repeatedly taunted Prime Minister Starmer as being "no Churchill" – a reference to Britain's leader during the Second World War.On Tuesday, Italy denied US aircraft permission to land as they were en route to the Middle East for combat operations. Spain has closed its airspace to US planes conducting missions against Iran.Rubio added it was "ultimately" up to the President to decide this issue.But it's not his alone.The US Congress voted at the end of 2023 to prohibit the president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO without the approval of a two-thirds Senate majority or an act of Congress.NATO leaders, and most of all its current secretary general Mark Rutte, will need to spend time again trying to convince and cajole Trump that it's in his interest, and America's, to stay.Rutte, like Stoltenberg, is called the "Trump whisperer" for his efforts in public, and private, to keep the unpredictable president on side. Rutte, the former Dutch leader armed with his toolbox of praise, is widely seen as having played a significant role in pulling Trump back from the brink in his threats to "take" Greenland – a semi-autonomous territory of fellow NATO member Denmark - earlier this year.But Rutte has also come under fire from other NATO states for going too far with his staunch support for a war against Iran he said Trump was doing "to make the whole world safe."But his top priority is keeping his 77-year-old coalition intact as it confronts growing threats in Ukraine, the Middle East – and the White House.