President Trump is considering pulling American troops from NATO member countries that declined to support his military campaign against Iran, a move that would mark one of the sharpest rebukes of the Western alliance in its 75-year history. Administration officials told the Daily Mail that the president may relocate forces stationed in allied nations that refused to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz or restricted the use of their airspace and military facilities during the conflict.
The reported plan surfaced just hours after Trump met Wednesday with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the White House, a meeting that, by all accounts, did not go smoothly. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters beforehand that withdrawing from NATO entirely was on the table.
The message from the administration was blunt: allies who spent decades relying on American defense dollars failed a real-world test when it mattered. And now there may be consequences.
Trump did not keep his frustration private. In a social media post Wednesday night, the president wrote in all capitals:
"NATO WASN'T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON'T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN."
He followed up Thursday morning with another broadside: "None of these people, including our own, very disappointing, NATO, understood anything unless they have pressure placed upon them!" In a separate post, he added a pointed reference to Greenland, "REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!", a reminder that his territorial ambitions remain very much alive and that NATO leaders who lobbied him to abandon those plans may have miscalculated their leverage.
Leavitt reinforced the president's stance with a direct quote she attributed to Trump himself:
"I have a direct quote from the President of the United States on NATO, and I will share it with all of you: 'They were tested and they failed.'"
She went further, calling it "quite sad that NATO turned their backs on the American people over the course of the last six weeks, when it's the American people who have been funding their defense." That framing, American taxpayers footing the bill for allies who won't show up, is one that resonates far beyond Washington. It is the core grievance Trump has carried since his first term, and it now has a concrete battlefield example attached to it.
NATO Secretary General Rutte, who met with both Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday, acknowledged the president's anger in a CNN interview. "He is clearly disappointed with many NATO allies, and I can see his point," Rutte said. But he tried to thread the needle, adding that "the large majority of European nations has been helpful with basing, with logistics, with overflights, with making sure that they live up to the commitments."
Rutte would not directly answer whether Trump had threatened to pull the United States out of NATO during their meeting. The Washington Post noted that Rutte appeared to have talked Trump out of any plan to end U.S. involvement with the alliance, at least for now. But the troop-repositioning idea, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, suggests the president is far from finished applying pressure.
The distinction matters. Trump may not be able to unilaterally leave NATO, Congress passed a law in 2023 that prevents any U.S. president from pulling out of the alliance without congressional approval, a measure that Rubio himself championed when he was still a senator from Florida. But moving troops is a different matter entirely. Redeploying forces from one allied country to another, or to a strategic location like Greenland, falls well within the president's authority as commander in chief.
That is the leverage point. And Trump, who has shown a consistent willingness to push back hard when he feels his authority is being challenged, appears ready to use it.
The backdrop to this dispute is the conflict with Iran that escalated after joint U.S.-Israeli attacks launched on February 28. Iran retaliated by effectively shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that handles roughly 20 percent of the world's oil and gas. That closure sent energy markets into turmoil and gave Trump a clear, urgent reason to demand allied support.
He repeatedly called on NATO members to send warships to help reopen the strait. Some allies cooperated. Some allowed the use of military bases. Others stayed neutral. And some, including, reportedly, the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, restricted access to airspace or facilities and refused to help.
For an alliance built on the principle of mutual defense, a principle invoked only once in NATO's history, after the September 11 attacks in 2001, when allies rallied to support the United States, the refusal of some members to assist during a live military crisis is a serious breach of trust. NATO has 32 member countries. The question Trump is now forcing is simple: how many of them are actually willing to act like allies?
The State Department confirmed that Rubio and Rutte discussed the war with Iran, efforts to negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, and what the department described as "increasing coordination and burden shifting with NATO allies." That last phrase, burden shifting, tells you where the administration's head is.
The NATO confrontation arrives against a volatile backdrop. A ceasefire with Iran was announced, but it is already fraying. Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, called a ceasefire and negotiations with the U.S. on ending the war "unreasonable" on Wednesday. He objected to what he described as continued Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, an alleged drone incursion into Iranian airspace after the ceasefire, and the Trump administration's position on Iranian nuclear enrichment.
Iran accused the United States of breaking three of Tehran's ten conditions for the ceasefire, though the specific conditions were not publicly detailed. The administration has shown it will move aggressively when it believes agreements are being violated or stalled.
Trump himself posted on Truth Social just before midnight that all U.S. military personnel and weaponry would remain in place until what he called the "REAL AGREEMENT" was reached. He warned bluntly:
"If for any reason it is not, which is highly unlikely, then the 'Shootin' Starts,' bigger, and better, and stronger than anyone has ever seen before. It was agreed, a long time ago, and despite all of the fake rhetoric to the contrary, NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS and, the Strait of Hormuz WILL BE OPEN & SAFE."
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes hit busy commercial and residential areas in central Beirut and the town of Abbasiyeh on the outskirts of Tyre on Wednesday. Lebanon reported at least 182 people killed and hundreds wounded. When asked about Lebanon's inclusion in the ceasefire, Trump told PBS NewsHour that Lebanon was not part of the deal because of Hezbollah. "That's a separate skirmish," he said.
Even as the NATO dispute intensifies, the administration is opening another diplomatic channel. Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner are expected to travel to Islamabad on Saturday for a first round of peace talks. The details of those discussions have not been disclosed, but the deployment of three high-profile figures signals the administration views the talks as serious.
Former NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg wrote in his recent memoir that he feared Trump might walk away from the alliance during his first term, back in 2018. That fear never materialized then. But the current confrontation, rooted not in abstract spending targets but in a real wartime refusal to cooperate, carries a different weight.
NATO was founded in 1949 as a mutual defense pact against Soviet aggression. For decades, the United States has been its largest funder, its military backbone, and its guarantor of last resort. Trump's complaint is not new. But the Iran conflict gave it teeth. When the president asked allies to help secure a waterway that carries a fifth of the world's energy supply, some of them said no. That is a fact the alliance will have to reckon with, regardless of whether troop movements follow.
The president's pattern of forceful public responses when he feels institutions have failed him is well established. What makes this episode different is that the failure he is pointing to is not rhetorical. It is operational. Allies were asked to contribute to a live military effort. Some refused.
Several questions remain unanswered. Which specific NATO countries would face troop withdrawals? How many American service members could be relocated, and from which bases? The administration has not said. Leavitt indicated that the president would discuss the NATO withdrawal question with Rutte directly, telling reporters: "Withdrawing from NATO... is something that the President will be discussing in a couple of hours with [Rutte] and perhaps you'll hear directly from the President following that meeting."
The 2023 congressional law blocking a unilateral NATO exit remains a constraint. But troop positioning is an executive prerogative. And the White House has shown no hesitation about reshuffling personnel and resources when it believes the current arrangement is not serving American interests.
For years, critics dismissed Trump's NATO complaints as bluster. Now the Strait of Hormuz has given him a receipts-in-hand argument. Allies who wouldn't help when American forces were in the fight may soon discover what it feels like when American forces aren't in their country at all.
If NATO wants to be treated like an alliance, it might try acting like one.
