Shock, condemnation after Trump questions NATO commitments

Alarm and condemnation erupted Thursday from European capitals, the White House and leaders of Donald Trump’s own party after the Republican presidential nominee suggested the United States might abandon its NATO military commitments if he were elected president.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who backed Trump at the party’s national convention only two days earlier, said he totally disagreed with the statement but was willing to “chalk it up to a rookie mistake.”

McConnell called NATO “the most successful military alliance in the history of the world,” in a Facebook interview with The New York Times.

In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance agreement was crystal clear: “We defend each other.”

“I will not interfere in the U.S. election campaign,” Stoltenberg said. But he pointedly added, “Two world wars have shown that peace in Europe is also important for the security of the United States.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest noted every president since World War II, Republican and Democratic, has supported the NATO agreement.

“The cornerstone of that alliance is the pledge that all of the allies have made to mutual self-defense,” the White House spokesman said. “The U.S. commitment to that pledge is ironclad.”

Indeed, Trump’s suggestion, in an interview with the Times, would upend decades of U.S. foreign policy and rock the security structures that have underpinned European and global stability since the end of World War II.

Trump said in the Times interview that he would review allies’ financial contributions – in this case, those from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – before acting under NATO’s mutual defense clause, if any of the countries were attacked by Russia.

Various U.S. administrations have complained, often bitterly, that many NATO members do not foot their share of the alliance’s bills.

The U.S. accounts for more than 70 percent of all NATO defense spending and only four other allies – Britain, Estonia, Greece and Poland – meet the minimum 2 percent of gross domestic product spending on defense that NATO requires.

But Trump’s floating of the idea that the spending target would be a prerequisite for the U.S. to defend a NATO ally was an abrupt break from longstanding American policy.

Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves tweeted his country was one of the few to meet the minimum defense expenditure and noted pointedly Estonia “fought, with no caveats” on behalf of the U.S. in Afghanistan.

The only time the treaty’s mutual defense clause has been invoked was in 2002, when NATO surveillance planes patrolled American skies and deployed a third of the troops sent to Afghanistan for a decade. More than 1,000 non-American troops died in Afghanistan.

Ilves’ fellow Eastern European leaders sought to calm the furor.

Yet, people throughout Eastern Europe expressed deep concern. Fears of Russian aggression have run high since it annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea.

“His words were irresponsible and they inspired fear in me. I’m worried about the world’s future, about Poland’s future,” said 39-year-old schoolteacher Lidia Zagorowska in Warsaw, Poland.

“If I were a U.S. citizen, I would never, ever vote for Trump. Let that be my answer,” said Katarzyna Woznicka, 54, walking her dog in downtown Warsaw.

Back in the United States, criticism, including some from Trump’s fellow Republicans, was blistering.

“My hope is that if Donald is elected president, we can convince him to change his mind on it,” said U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a former primary opponent who now supports Trump.