Trump’s dangerously wrong about Nato – and if he wins, he’ll hang us out to dry

Does anyone think Donald Trump would commit American lives and billions to protect Latvia, or Poland, or even France? He couldn’t find them on a map, let alone be relied upon to defend Nato allies, writes Sean O’Grady

Perhaps Trump, the great New Yorker, has forgotten that the Nato allies immediately stood by America after 9/11 (Reuters)

It’s difficult to know where to start with Donald Trump. He is, as we have discovered, a deeply dangerous man – and a clear and obvious threat to the security of the United States and the Western alliance.

The fact that he doesn’t understand or value the concept of collective security is as good a place as any to begin. Trump, appealing as ever to the base, talks to Nato allies like “delinquent” tenants in one of his tower blocks behind on the rent and subject to eviction: “You gotta pay your bills.”

Delinquent or not, this is no way to treat your closest friends – nations with shared values and common interests, facing the same foes in the world, and which have fought together and mingled blood in too many dusty battlefields.

Telling Vladimir Putin, in effect, that he has a free hand on the other side of the Atlantic is bad for international peace and prosperity, including that of the United States. Considerable damage to confidence and security has already been done, not least in Ukraine.

We know that Trump would happily negotiate away half of that country to end the war “in a day”, as he brags. Putin is biding his time and digging in until his old friend gets back to the White House, and he can fool him into a “peace” deal.

The Republicans in the Senate have already shown themselves happy to cut arms and aid for Ukraine; they resent spending the money, and so does Trump. Once he’s digested eastern Ukraine, Putin will be back for more, and Trump won’t mind how hungry Vladimir feels.

Of course, Ukraine isn’t in Nato, but so what if Nato no longer matters to America? Let us be honest; does anyone seriously think Trump would commit billions of dollars and many thousands of American lives to fight Russia over Latvia? Albania? Or Poland? Romania? Or even Germany and France?

He couldn’t find them on a map. Neither should the British delude themselves that he would sacrifice American treasure and lives to stop Putin from establishing a Russian protectorate over the United Kingdom via a forced “treaty of friendship”.

None of this would happen rapidly, yet the Europe of 2034 could be a very different place indeed because Trump is, by instinct, an appeaser of Russia and simply doesn’t care what happens to the Europeans – we can see that in his scornful language and his actions when he was in the White House.

It was heard continually when he turned up for Nato summits during his disastrous presidency, and he hasn’t changed his tune. Withdrawal from Nato would be executed with the same cheerful insouciance with which he ditched the Paris climate accords, the World Health Organisation, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the North American Trade Area. He doesn’t like foreign commitments.

We in Europe remember better the lessons of appeasement. We barely escaped domination by the Nazis and the Soviets the last time the world went to war, and the main reason we didn’t was because America eventually abandoned isolationism to save freedom.

Like protectionism, the doctrine of isolationism disfigured American policy in the first decades of the 20th century and, again like the abandonment of free trade, appears to be coming back into fashion once more. It is profoundly depressing.

Perhaps Trump, the great New Yorker, has forgotten that the Nato allies immediately stood by America after 9/11. That murderous day remains the only occasion in Nato’s 75-year history when Article 5 of the founding Atlantic Charter was triggered.

That’s the “all for one and one for all” clause that means an attack on any member, large or small, is treated as such by every one of the 31 member states. Nato supported and contributed to George W Bush’s war on terror and the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001; not only American lives were lost in that venture.

The question Trump has to ask is whether it is in the interests of the United States to have all or part of Europe occupied by a resurgent Russia, with China and Iran at its side in an axis of evil. All of Trump’s predecessors considered Russian dominance of Europe a bad idea, on balance, because it was reckless to have the military and industrial power commandeered by the old Soviet Union.

The occupation of Eastern Europe was resisted, albeit for many years under detente with only token efforts. It was Ronald Reagan who fought and won the last phase of the Cold War – at vast and disproportionate cost to the American taxpayer but a central part of making America great again.

Earlier, when the Europeans were recovering from the Second World War, America not only paid for the bulk of the defence effort but sent huge quantities of economic Marshall aid to nations, some of whom it had been at war with only months before.

Obviously, and embarrassingly, Trump has a point, in that Europe is richer now, and far too many Nato members don’t live up to the joint commitment to spend 2 per cent of national income on defence – about half of what it was running at during the Cold War.

However, these are not bills owed to the USA, to be punished by unilaterally withdrawing from the commitment to collective security, but mutual treaty obligations that must be honoured via diplomatic means. They are bills we owe to one another, not just to America.

At any rate, Trump is no friend of Britain or the rest of Europe. For reasons that remain a little unclear, he seems to be much better disposed towards Putin and Kim Jong-un than towards America’s Nato allies.

Those of us sitting on the other side of the Atlantic and hearing him say that Putin could do what the hell he liked in Europe is a little terrifying because the end result might be Putin doing to Warsaw or Paris what he has done to Kharkiv and Kyiv.

Now that Trump’s putative vice-presidential running mate, Tucker Carlson, has had his two-hour tutorial on the Putin version of Russian history, America’s drift towards isolationism seems well under way. You may recall the Helsinki summit when the then president Trump rubbished his own nation’s security services and preferred to trust the word of Putin, a war criminal.

If Trump gets in, he is going to hang us out to dry. Europe, which for these purposes has to include the UK, is going to have to find a way to fend for itself. If the past is anything to go by, that isn’t going to happen because Europe remains too divided and argumentative.

Some, such as Hungary and Slovakia, actually seem to want to be Russian allies even as they benefit from EU and Nato membership – an unsustainable position. They cannot be involved in strategic and sensitive Western discussions while on friendly terms with the Kremlin.

The hard right in Britain also offer themselves up as useful idiots and junior partners to Trump and Putin. Perhaps they think that the Russians will leave us alone if we let them have Poland or even the rest of Europe. That sort of naive calculation got us into trouble before and almost cost us our independence.

A Trump presidency is the worst possible outcome for the UK; the fact that Nigel Farage is actively promoting it is merely confirmation that it’s going to hurt us.

The truth is that as we edge further into this new cold war, Europe needs America more than America needs Europe; but in the face of a nascent and formidable Russian-Chinese alliance, we both need one another more than ever before. Divided we fall…