Officials in nations bordering Russia urged President Donald Trump not to retreat from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), arguing that America still has too much at stake in Europe even as Trump grows increasingly frustrated with the alliance and its response to Iran.
In mid-May, the Caller visited countries bordering Russia to ask officials about Trump’s accusations that NATO states are failing to fulfill their duties and his threats to pull U.S. support from Europe. Transportation and lodging for the trip were sponsored by a group of those states.
The officials made their case as Trump, after what he viewed as a belated response from European allies to the war with Iran, spent several weeks threatening to pull out of NATO, the alliance formed in 1949 as a bulwark against the Soviet Union.
Trump has called NATO a useless “paper tiger,” a “severely weakened and extremely unreliable” partner, threatened to pull out of the organization altogether and withdrewthousands of troops from Germany in early May.
Most recently, on May 14, the U.S. Department of War canceled the rotation of 4,000 troops into Poland, the NATO country bordering Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
