How he came to love NATO
How Donald Trump came to love NATO
Trump: NATO no longer obsolete 00:57
Story highlights
- Trump called the alliance "obsolete" multiple times during the campaign
- NATO chief favors increased defense spending from allies
Washington (CNN)President
Donald Trump emphatically embraced NATO Wednesday in a reversal of his
campaign trail rhetoric lambasting the organization.
"I
said it's obsolete," Trump said, referencing a favorite refrain. "Now
it's no longer obsolete." He was speaking to reporters at the White
House alongside NATO's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, after giving
him a warm welcome and praising the organization as "the bulwark of
international peace and security."
Trump's newfound enthusiasm for NATO
brings him into alignment with a long-standing bipartisan consensus in
Washington, exemplified by House Speaker Paul Ryan's announcement
earlier Wednesday that he would lead a delegation of both Republicans
and Democrats to visit key NATO members.
But
Trump's about-face has more to do with those closest to him and the way
Stoltenberg has focused on shared priorities with the new President, as
well as the deterioration of another key relationship: that of the US
and Russia. Here are four factors that have driven Trump's dramatic 180
on NATO -- for now.
Personnel
Trump
has appointed several pro-NATO figures to senior positions and appears
willing to heed their advice. Secretary of Defense James Mattis once
held one of the senior-most military commands in the alliance and
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called the US commitment to the
collective defense of fellow alliance members "inviolable" during his
confirmation hearings.
Lt. Gen. HR McMaster, Trump's new national security adviser, is similarly thought to embrace the alliance.
And it's fitting that Trump made his comments alongside Stoltenberg following an hour-long meeting in the Oval Office.
Stoltenberg
has long professed NATO priorities similar to Trumps, in particular
boosting defense spending among the member states and fighting
terrorism.
During the presidential
race, Trump even went so far as to suggest that America's commitment to
the alliance's principle of collective defense of other member states
was contingent on whether the country being attacked met its commitment
to defense spending. But on Wednesday, a senior White House official
called Trump's current commitment to collective defense "ironclad."
Nevertheless, Stoltenberg has echoed Trump in calling for increased
burden-sharing, labeling it his "top priority."
Counterterrorism
On
Wednesday, Trump specifically cited NATO's initiatives in fighting
terrorism as reason for his newfound respect for the organization.
"They made a change, and now they do fight terrorism," Trump said, which was a key demand he as a presidential candidate.
NATO chief brushes off past Trump criticism 02:41
While
NATO officials have long stressed that the organization has been
combating terrorism for over a decade -- including by fighting and
training local troops in Afghanistan -- the alliance has in recent
months taken on an even bigger role in counterterrorism.
In
February, NATO began training Iraqi troops in country, helping build
their capacity for the battle against ISIS. A NATO official told CNN
that that effort has "no end date." NATO has also since October flown
AWACS surveillance planes in support of the counter-ISIS fight.
"NATO
is involved in supporting the fight against terrorism in Syria and
Iraq," Stoltenberg told CNN"s Wolf Blitzer following his White House
visit. "We are present in the wider Middle East region helping partners
like Jordan (and) Tunisia to stabilize their countries and to fight
terrorism."
But, he added, "I believe NATO can do more."
Defense Spending
During
the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly slammed the members --
23 out of 28 -- that are not meeting the alliance's recommended defense
spending levels of 2% of GDP.
But there has been progress on that front, too.
NATO
announced that the its members had boosted its overall non-US defense
spending by 3.8%, or $10 billion, in 2016. Romania, Latvia and Lithuania
-- all concerned about the ambitions of nearby Russia -- have all
recently announced that they will meet the target next year.
Some
experts think that Russia's military activities have been a bigger
driver of defense spending increases than Trump's pressure, particularly
among the alliance's eastern members.
Donald Trump to NATO countries: Pay up 00:39
Stoltenberg, however, expressed gratitude to Trump directly Wednesday for his emphasis on boosting allied defense spending.
"I
thank you for your attention to this issue," he said. "We are already
seeing the effects of your strong focus on the importance on
burden-sharing in the alliance."
But the momentum might not last.
"Although
(Stoltenberg) also wants Europe to spend more, he's only the political
leader of the alliance," Jorge Benitez, the director of NATOSource told
CNN. "He can't deliver on increases the way Trump wants him to."
The
leaders of Europe and Canada would need to take the hard political
decisions to boost defense spending, he said. "I don't think Europeans
are taking this threat seriously enough."
Russia
And then there's the deterioration of Trump's relationship with NATO's traditional adversary, Moscow.
"We may be at an all-time low," Trump said of US-Russia relations Wednesday.
Tensions have recently flared over Moscow's military backing of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom the US accused of using chemical weapons last week. Russia then criticized the US for launching a retaliatory strike.
"(Trump) has been very
firm that he is 100% committed to NATO," a senior administration
official. "I think that position remains unchanged, and probably was
reinforced by, again, everything that Russia is doing,"
The
Russians appeared to mock Trump's new stance on the alliance, with
Moscow's diplomatic mission to NATO issuing a tweet questioning when the
alliance no longer became obsolete.
On
Monday, Trump signed off on the Balkan country of Montenegro becoming
NATO's newest member, a move that Moscow has long opposed.
"For
Russia, this is something they did not want to see happen," NATO
Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, told the House
Armed Services Committee last month.
On Thursday, a US-led battalion in Poland bolstering Eastern European allies in Russia's shadow, is due to be activated.
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