Legal experts assess path to potential US exit from NATO TIME Magazine

US President Donald Trump has said he is seriously considering withdrawing the United States from NATO, following allied nations’ reluctance to actively participate in the ongoing conflict with Iran.

“Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration. I was never swayed by NATO,” Trump stated in an interview with The Telegraph published on April 1. “I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.”

His remarks came after earlier warnings to NATO allies that they faced a “very bad” future if they did not help secure the Strait of Hormuz. European countries responded cautiously and declined to deploy warships to the region.

Trump criticized the response, describing his call for support as a deliberate test.

“We’ve been there automatically, including Ukraine. Ukraine wasn’t our problem. It was a test, and we were there for them, and we would always have been there for them. They weren’t there for us,” he said.

The US president’s stance reflects a broader sentiment within his administration, as highlighted in an article by TIME magazine. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a March 31 interview that Washington may need to “re-examine” its relationship with NATO after the war. War Secretary Pete Hegseth and US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker have issued similar signals, with Whitaker noting that Trump is re-evaluating “everything” related to the alliance.

Legalities behind US-exit from NATO

The United States has been a central NATO member since its founding in 1949, though Trump has repeatedly questioned its value, including earlier this year during a dispute over Greenland.

Legal experts say a US withdrawal would face significant hurdles. According to Ilaria Di Gioia of Birmingham City University, the National Defence Authorization Act of 2024, which is an annual bill by Congress that specifies the Defence (War) Department's annual budget and expenditures, “sought to place a firm legal brake on any future attempt to pull the United States out of NATO by prohibiting a President from doing so without either a two-thirds Senate super-majority or an act of Congress.”

“Yet those legal constraints remain far from solid,” she remarked.

Gioia noted that Trump could attempt to bypass Congress by invoking presidential authority over foreign policy.

“Trump could seek to circumvent Congress’ statutory constraint by invoking presidential authority over foreign policy, an approach he has floated before to bypass congressional limits on treaty withdrawal,” she said. “It is unclear whether any party would have legal standing to challenge such a move in court. The most plausible plaintiff would be Congress itself, but with the Republicans in control of the Senate, political support for such a lawsuit is far from assured.”

“The result would be a constitutional confrontation between the Executive [branch] and Congress, with the courts as the likely referee,” she continued.

She added that Trump “could frame NATO withdrawal as necessary for national defence, citing broad Commander-in-Chief authority (Article II, Section 2),” though such a move would require strong justification.

Curtis Bradley pointed to historical precedent, noting President Jimmy Carter withdrew from a defence treaty with Taiwan in 1978. However, Bradley stressed that any NATO exit would likely trigger legal disputes.

“If there are contractors with NATO that could lose money from the US withdrawal, that would be an economic injury that would potentially give them a standing to sue,” he said.

Despite possible legal pathways, experts agree the situation remains highly uncertain.

“The very idea of a US exit erodes trust, cohesion, and the credibility of collective defence,” Gioia said. “Trump’s repeated questioning of the alliance weakens deterrence, shakes European security planning, and emboldens adversaries.”

Bradley described NATO as the “most important mutual defence treaty of the post-WWII era,” adding that while a full US withdrawal would be surprising, continued “tensions with NATO” are far more likely.

By Nazrin Sadigova