"Trust Has Been Broken": Former NATO Ambassador Says Trump Has Destroyed the Alliance

Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder condemned Trump's threats to the alliance in stark terms: "Trust has been broken."

Trump is reportedly considering pulling the U.S. out of NATO because European allies refused to join his Iran war. He threatened to stop selling weapons to Ukraine via NATO if allies refused to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz — linking two unrelated conflicts to punish allies for not joining a war they had no part in starting.

The allies' response has been to distance themselves further:

• France closed its airspace to U.S. warplanes
• Spain barred U.S. bombers from Spanish bases
• Germany's defense minister said: "This is not our war"
• NATO as a whole refused to invoke Article 5 or provide military support
• Trump called allies "COWARDS" on Truth Social

Daalder explained why the damage may be irreparable: "Military alliances are at their core based on trust — the confidence that if I am attacked, you will come help defend. It's hard to see how any European country will now be able and willing to trust the United States to come to its defense."

The sequence matters: Trump launched a war without consulting allies, without congressional authorization, during active peace negotiations. When allies refused to join a war they weren't consulted about, he called them cowards. When they still refused, he threatened to abandon NATO's core function — defending Europe. He is destroying the most successful military alliance in history because it won't follow him into a war of choice.

NATO was built in 1949 on the principle that an attack on one is an attack on all. Trump has inverted it: if you don't join my attack on someone else, I'll abandon you. That is the opposite of what the alliance exists to do.