Legal barriers weaken Trump’s threat to quit NATO
Pimco’s Libby Cantrill told clients a 2024 law makes a unilateral U.S. withdrawal from NATO unlikely despite Trump’s repeated threats.
By Daniel Okafor · Business Editor
2 min read
President Trump’s repeated threats to pull the United States out of NATO face a major legal obstacle, according to Pimco’s head of public policy, Libby Cantrill. Her view matters for allies and markets because a U.S. exit from the military alliance would mark a major break in transatlantic security policy.
Cantrill told Pimco clients that investors should not expect Trump to follow through on leaving NATO, Fortune reported. She pointed to a 2024 law passed by Congress that blocks a president from withdrawing the United States from the alliance on his own.
Under that measure, Fortune reported, a president cannot quit NATO without either a 60-vote majority in the Senate or a change in the law. The restriction was enacted after years of concern in Washington that a president could try to end U.S. participation without congressional approval.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte is due in Washington this week, Fortune reported. His visit comes as Trump has again criticized the alliance, saying it “wasn’t there when we needed them” in connection with Iran.
Trump has floated leaving NATO more than once, according to Fortune. Cantrill argued that the threat is weaker than it may appear because Congress has already moved to limit the president’s authority on the issue.
“While President Trump likes to refer to NATO as a ‘paper tiger,’ arguably, the paper tiger is the threat that the U.S. will withdraw from NATO,” Cantrill said in an email to clients, according to Fortune.
Congressional limits shape the issue
The 2024 restriction was part of a bipartisan effort in the Senate, Fortune reported. Marco Rubio, now secretary of state, helped lead that push when he was in the Senate, according to a press release from Sen. Tim Kaine’s office cited by Fortune.
The law’s practical effect is to make a NATO exit far more difficult than a presidential statement or threat, Cantrill told clients. Fortune reported that NATO remains popular in Congress, another factor that would make it hard to assemble support for withdrawal.
The issue puts Trump’s criticism of NATO against a legal and political barrier created before his current term. Cantrill’s assessment suggests that the market and diplomatic reaction to Trump’s NATO rhetoric should account for Congress’s role, not only the president’s public comments.
Rutte’s Washington visit will test that tension, Fortune reported. Trump’s criticism of NATO over Iran has raised the risk of a public clash, but Pimco’s analysis says U.S. withdrawal remains unlikely under current law.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.