NATO summit and the absence of commitment to article 5

Instead of showing unity, the NATO summit evidenced the lack of it. It also evidenced the diversity of positions towards common issues such as migration and terrorism.

World leaders met at the NATO summit on May 25, where United States President Donald Trump was expected to reassure his commitment to NATO’s Art. 5, where it is expressed the mutual defense obligation that keeps the organization together. Instead, Trump scolded all the other members to pay more towards NATO and to defend themselves from immigration and terrorism. Instead of showing unity, the NATO summit evidenced the lack of it. It also evidenced the diversity of positions towards common issues such as migration and terrorism.

As if it is not enough to spread xenophobia in the United States, Trump decided to take advantage of his opportunity of speaking to NATO in order to preach the same discourse of hate and fear towards immigration. Instead of trying to pledge for unity in order to find a solution to the problems of refugees and terrorism (that were in good part caused by them), Trump chose to scream everybody for them to close their doors to the suffering people fleeing from terror. He literally said that they “have thousands and thousands of people pouring into our various countries and spreading throughout, and in many cases we have no idea who they are”, and that the NATO of the future must include a great focus on terrorism and migration”. By scolding the group of world leaders with these words, he is literally trying to push everybody aside in order to put himself and his ideas in the front. This is exactly what Trump did with the leader of Montenegro, Prime Minister Dusko Markovic, who is the newest country member of the organization (in spite of the campaign that Moscow did to prevent this from happening). With this, he proves that it does not matter who is in his way, he will push them aside and impose himself and his ideas, even when they are not exactly the wisest and even when this means to harm thousands of people.

All this comes after Trump himself called the NATO obsolete, and after having said that the Unites States would come to aid an ally in case of attack depending only on how much this ally has cooperated with its financial obligations with NATO. Many world leaders were expressly expecting for Trump’s strong commitment with Art. 5, given the current investigations against him and his administration for allegedly having close ties with Russia, fearing that there is a certain Russian influence on Trump’s views of NATO. Also, given the fact that each president of the United States (since Truman) have clearly stated their express commitment to Art. 5, it was customary to expect the same from the current president. He stayed silent on this, preferring to scold everyone to pay more.

While it is true that the NATO members agreed to increase their military spending until reaching the 2% of their respective GDP, the agreed deadline to do so is the year 2024. This means that all those members who are behind have seven more years to reach the promised investment. Having said this, it resulted only embarrassing to have Trump asking for more money when everybody understands that there are still 7 years more until reaching such deadline. Even more, it becomes highly insensitive to ask the members for money in the exact moment of the memorial honoring the solidarity of such members with the United States after 9/11. This type of speech and behavior only makes us think that nobody is advising him whatsoever. His speech was embarrassingly ignorant and uninformed, just like his daily tweets.

Dott.ssa Ana Figueroa