US tariffs against European countries and President Donald Trump's plans to take control of Greenland are in breach of several articles of the North Atlantic Treaty. An unnamed NATO diplomat told Politico.
According to him, Trump's threats violate both Article 2 and Article 3 of the treaty. Article 2 obliges NATO member states to work to eliminate conflicts in their international economic policies and to promote economic cooperation between allies. Article 3 then states that member countries must maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to defend themselves against armed attack.
Politico, after interviewing several diplomats and politicians, reports that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte's top priority is to prevent the United States under Donald Trump from turning away from Europe. However, this approach exposes him to criticism because, according to the newspaper, it distracts from other key responsibilities that come with the job.
At the same time, tensions over Greenland have made European leaders „think the unthinkable“. The Financial Times reports that Europe is being forced to consider a scenario in which the United States could withdraw from NATO.
According to the Financial Times, since its inception, the alliance has operated on the premise that each member state - especially the United States - would come to the aid of an attacked ally. But that trust has been severely eroded, according to the paper, by Trump's repeated doubts about the purpose of NATO as well as his questioning of America's collective defense commitments.
Former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder said that Trump's threats to take over Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark, have sparked a crisis „worse than anything we've seen in the 77 years of NATO“. According to Rachel Ellehuus, head of the Royal United Service Institute, a London-based think tank, the damage has already been done and uncertainty about the credibility of the US commitment has become a permanent undertone of transatlantic relations.
At the same time, the Financial Times notes that a number of European leaders have begun to push for a more active debate on the continent's future security architecture. The European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius The letter said that Europe must have a clear strategy on how to materially replace US military capabilities.
At the same time, Kubilic said, it is necessary to discuss more and more intensively the institutional readiness of European defence and the strengthening of the so-called European pillar of NATO. „Now is the time. It's exactly what we need to do,“ He concluded.
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