Trump's NATO withdrawal threat: Senate minority leader hails Rubio's previous stance, making Senate approval a must

ISTANBUL

US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer thanked Secretary of State Marco Rubio for previously backing legislation requiring Senate approval for any US withdrawal from NATO, after President Donald Trump revived debate over leaving the alliance.

"No US President should be able to withdraw from NATO without Senate approval," Rubio wrote on the US social media company X in a 2023 post.

"I can promise this: The Senate will not vote to leave NATO and abandon our allies just because Trump is upset they wouldn’t go along with his reckless war of choice," Schumer wrote Wednesday on X.

He further thanked Rubio "for sponsoring the bill in 2023 requiring a two-thirds vote of the Senate to make sure clueless presidents couldn’t act on a whim."

Speaking on television Tuesday, Marco Rubio referred back to his previous stance, saying he had regarded the alliance as offering “great value” since it gave the US the ability to “project power into different parts of the world” when facing threats to national security.

He now says NATO is turning into a “one-way street,” as several European leaders hesitate to support US military actions against Iran.

Trump was reportedly frustrated by European allies’ reluctance to send naval vessels to protect oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, recently calling NATO members “cowards” and a “paper tiger.”

In an interview with The Telegraph, Donald Trump said: “I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and (Russian President) Putin knows that too, by the way.”