Trump calls for NATO support to protect southern US borders

US President Donald Trump proposed testing NATO forces by invoking the alliance’s collective defence clause to protect the southern borders of the United States from what he described as an influx of illegal migrants.

While writing on the Truth Social platform, Trump emphasised that involving NATO would free up many US border patrol agents for other duties, Caliber.Az reports.

“Maybe we should have put NATO to the test: Invoked Article 5, and forced NATO to come here and protect our Southern Border from further Invasions of Illegal Immigrants, thus freeing up large numbers of Border Patrol Agents for other tasks,” the president noted.

NATO’s Article 5 is the core of the alliance’s mutual defence commitment, stating that an armed attack against one member in Europe or North America is considered an attack on all, and obliges each ally to assist as they see fit, though that assistance need not be military.

It has been invoked only once in NATO’s history, after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, when allies agreed to provide various forms of collective support, including intelligence sharing and patrol assistance.

Article 5 applies generally to armed attacks by external forces and is assessed case by case; purely domestic issues without international armed aggression do not trigger the mutual defence obligation, which also has geographic limits within the North Atlantic area.

By Jeyhun Aghazada