- cross-posted to:
- politics@kbin.social
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would direct President Biden to withdraw the U.S. from NATO. She argues that European countries are not reliable partners and are not paying their fair share of NATO obligations, while the U.S. pays around 4% of its GDP to defend NATO countries. Greene claims that European countries could and should pay more to ensure NATO security instead of relying on U.S. taxpayers. She introduced the amendment on the same day that President Biden expressed the U.S.'s “ironclad commitment” to NATO at a NATO summit in Lithuania, where NATO leaders also declared that Ukraine’s future is in NATO
So weird to suggest leaving NATO as the solution to other participants allegedly not contributing their fair share. I guess this is one of those “take the ball and go home” compromises I’ve heard about?
This whole “paying their fair share” is sort of a red herring too. I remember when Trump was talking about this and saying NATO was ripping us off. That’s not how this works. In 2014 NATO countries agreed to spend 2% of their budget on defense. This was so the countries would have a military deterrence and wouldn’t just be relying on the USA on other countries to step in if they got in trouble.
If the other countries don’t spend that much, no one is “owed” any money. No one got ripped off. The USA didn’t suddenly incur a bill or spend money to make up that shortfall. Those countries simply don’t have as large of a defense program as NATO would like.