Trump to leave NATO if members don’t perform well

US President Donald Trump does not have much patience for “lip service” and would pull out of NATO if its member countries do not make major efforts in combating terrorism and if they don’t fulfill their financial commitment.

“He (Trump) is at a place where he would like to stay in NATO, but if there isn’t progress much quicker, then he would rather not stay in NATO,” a senior Trump administration official said yesterday, ahead of the NATO Summit in Brussels next week.

Trump will leave for a five-nation tour this week, during which he would attend the summit in Belgium.

In his meeting with NATO leaders, Trump would confer on the war in Afghanistan and the fight against ISIS.

White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer said on Tuesday that the US president would like to see a greater effort placed on combating terrorism by the NATO countries and wanted them to live up to the financial obligations that they agreed to.

“The one thing that he doesn’t have patience for is lip service. So people are telling him good things. NATO has stepped up a little bit more, but you know, we’ll either see the real changes toward NATO or we’ll try to form a different way of going about things,” the official said.

“You’ll see what he says when he’s there (at the summit), but it’s a very serious issue for him and it’s a very serious issue for the American people because we don’t want to be paying for everyone’s defence. It’s just not fair to the American taxpayers and it’s not something that the president wants to witness,” the official stated.

According to sources, Trump will talk about how “we really do need and want our partners in Europe to do more” at the Brussels summit.

“America has borne the burden of the partnership for far too long, and the Trump Administration is expecting everyone to step up. We want a strong relationship, but we want everyone else to do their share,” the official added.

“There are some issues in the world that are America’s problems and there are some issues that are the world’s problems, and they’re as much Canada’s problems as they’re America’s problems as they’re Germany’s problems. At the end of the day, we have to have a thoughtful discussion about how we go about doing it. But what I do know about the president’s view is that America should not be bearing the entire burden for everyone’s security around the world,” the official asserted.

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