By Patricia Zengerle<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, April 1 (Reuters) \u2013 President Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to pull the United States out of NATO due to its European members\u2019 refusal to send ships to unblock the Strait of Hormuz near Iran, as he intensified his denunciations of the military alliance.<\/p>\n
Experts say it is not clear whether Trump could act unilaterally to leave the 77-year-old \u200btrans-Atlantic coalition, even though he frequently makes major decisions without congressional approval, some of which are held up by U.S. courts.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s \u200ca look at the issue:<\/p>\n
WHAT DOES THE U.S. CONSTITUTION SAY?<\/p>\n
The Constitution specifies that the president has the power to make treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate, provided two-thirds of the 100-member Senate concur.<\/p>\n
However, it is silent on treaty withdrawal.<\/p>\n
WHAT DOES THE NATO TREATY SAY?<\/p>\n
NATO, which includes European countries, the United States and Canada, was formed in 1949 with the aim of countering the risk of Soviet attack and has been the cornerstone of the West\u2019s security ever since.<\/p>\n
Article 13 of \u200cthe \u200b1949 North Atlantic Treaty says that any party may withdraw after giving one year\u2019s notice to \u2060the government of the United States, which \u2060will then inform other governments of the \u201cnotice of denunciation.\u201d<\/p>\n
To date, no NATO member has ever rescinded its membership.<\/p>\n
WHAT DOES U.S. LAW SAY?<\/p>\n
In 2023, Congress passed, and then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat, signed into law, legislation barring any U.S. president from suspending, terminating, denouncing or withdrawing the United States from the treaty that established NATO unless the withdrawal is backed by a two-thirds majority in the 100-member \u200bSenate.<\/p>\n
The legislation was introduced as an amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, a massive annual bill setting policy for the Pentagon. The amendment\u2019s lead sponsors were Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia and then-Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.<\/p>\n
Rubio, who is now both Trump\u2019s \u2060Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, said on Tuesday that Washington would \u2060have to reexamine its relations with NATO after the Iran war, which began on February 28 with U.S. \u200band Israeli air strikes.<\/p>\n
The NDAA amendment also said that no U.S. funds could be spent on a withdrawal from NATO.<\/p>\n
WHAT HAS TRUMP SAID?<\/p>\n
Trump has \u200bbeen harshly critical of NATO for years. In 2020, during his first term, the Department of Justice\u2019s legal \u200ccounsel issued an opinion saying that the president \u2013 not Congress \u2013 has the exclusive authority to withdraw from treaties.<\/p>\n
A February 2026 report by the Congressional Research Service said that, if the issue came up in court, the executive branch could cite that opinion and argue that the NDAA amendment is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
Trump told Reuters on Wednesday that he would state in an address to the nation that he was \u201cabsolutely\u201d considering withdrawing from the alliance, citing \u201cdisgust \u2060with NATO.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s remarks came just hours after his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declined to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to NATO\u2019s collective defense.<\/p>\n
Experts said this lack of commitment, rather than any law, was the key point.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the president and the military are not committed to NATO and European \u2060security, then I don\u2019t think there\u2019s much Congress can \u200cactually do to hold that back,\u201d said Max Bergmann, a former State Department official who is \u2060now director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.<\/p>\n
WHAT \u200bHAPPENS NEXT?<\/p>\n
Under \u200cinternational law, a nation\u2019s head of state generally has the authority to withdraw from a treaty, \u200bif the treaty \u2060allows withdrawal and the nation adheres to the withdrawal process.<\/p>\n
U.S. law has been less clear, although presidents have withdrawn from several treaties without Congress\u2019 approval, including Trump\u2019s 2020 departure from the 35-nation Open Skies treaty allowing unarmed surveillance flights over member countries.<\/p>\n
If the issue ends up in the courts, the challenge to Trump\u2019s decision would face steep hurdles. Those include establishing who has standing \u2013 a personal stake in the outcome \u2013 to challenge the withdrawal.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Supreme Court, whose conservative majority often rules in Trump\u2019s favor, has never heard a treaty withdrawal case on its merits.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing \u200bby Don Durfee and Alistair Bell)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON, April 1 (Reuters) \u2013 President Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to pull the United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-558917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}