President-elect Donald Trump has long mused about withdrawing the U.S. from NATO, and his election is making international leaders anxious that he’ll make good on his promise. But senators say that, other than bringing Trump to court if he tried to withdraw, they’ve done all they can do to protect the treaty.
Thanks to a 2023 measure authored by Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, withdrawal from NATO now requires a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate or an authorizing act from Congress.
“We’ve protected NATO,” Kaine told reporters Tuesday. “If he tries to withdraw, we’ll beat him in court.”
In the wake of Trump’s victory, Senate Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee like Kaine say they’re concerned about keeping the NATO alliance intact during the next administration. But with the new law in place, they are confident it’s as secure as it can be.
Kaine acknowledged there are other ways Trump could undermine the U.S.’s commitment to NATO other than by withdrawing from it. He could refuse to defend NATO allies from Russia or other countries, for instance.
Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, also voiced confidence in the law and said Congress is still in charge of treaty withdrawals: “Whether you exercise Article Five is ultimately still a question that has to come back to Congress,” he said. “So in any case, NATO is only an operable treaty with a proactive vote of the United States Congress.”
Now, though, there might be hope for NATO supporters and nervous European partners in Rubio.
The Florida senator, who was announced Wednesday as Trump’s pick for secretary of state, is seen globally as someone who cares about American allies and, given he was the lead Republican on last year’s NATO bill, someone broadly committed to that alliance. A handful of Democrats said Tuesday night that they like Rubio personally and see him as a serious pick who they wouldn’t mind confirming.
Sen. George Helmy, a New Jersey Democrat, alluded to the bipartisan support NATO has among his colleagues, although he said Trump has given him reason to be nervous.
“I think we have to be concerned, given his prior remarks,” Helmy told NOTUS on Tuesday night. “I don’t know about protecting it in the lame duck, but I know there’s a number of members who understand the global importance of NATO and the important role that the US plays there. I would hope that folks are going to continue to protect our stance.”
Hawkish Republicans, meanwhile, have tried to downplay the idea that Trump would actually pull the U.S. out of NATO.
“This is not a real threat,” just campaign talk during “the political silly season,” Sen. Thom Tillis said over the summer at the NATO summit, The Washington Post reported. “Let’s just be very clear: This is not something that’s in the cards.”
The 2023 law is not airtight. Even though it technically prohibits the president from withdrawing without Congress, Scott Anderson, a legal expert at the Brookings Institution, said there might be a question as to whether anyone would have standing to sue if Trump decided to sidestep lawmakers. A provision that was originally in the 2023 law but got dropped from the final version would have automatically authorized a lawsuit on Congress’ behalf. However, there’s no appetite in the lame duck Congress to try to push through a change to the law.
“I think Congress pre-authorizing this and pursuing this sort of mechanism would probably be the strongest case for standing,” Anderson said.
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Helen Huiskes is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
John T. Seward, a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow, contributed to reporting.