Since returning to office in January 2025, Donald Trump hasn’t detonated NATO with a clean, headline-grabbing withdrawal. He’s done something far more Trumpian and far more corrosive. Boxed in by a 2024 law requiring a two-thirds Senate vote to exit the alliance, the administration has opted for slow-motion sabotage: hollowing out NATO’s core promise until it resembles a loyalty program rather than a mutual-defense pact. Article 5, the sacred clause that once made the Kremlin flinch, is now treated like a cover charge. Pay up, or you’re on your own.
The White House’s preferred model is what diplomats have begun calling “Dormant NATO”, an alliance that technically exists but only activates for clients who meet the president’s ever-shifting demands. At the June 2025 summit, Trump strong-armed allies into committing to an unprecedented 5 percent of GDP on defense by 2035, more than double the long-standing target. Even that wasn’t enough. Trump has repeatedly suggested the U.S. may simply decline to defend countries that don’t “pay what they owe,” openly transforming collective defense into a fee-for-service scheme. The result is a fractured alliance where “good” countries like Poland and the Baltics get bespoke security deals, while Germany and France are publicly scolded like delinquent tenants.
Then came Greenland. What once sounded like a late-night cable-news joke metastasized into the most serious intra-NATO crisis since the alliance’s founding. By January 2026, Trump had declared anything short of U.S. control of Greenland “unacceptable,” elevating territorial acquisition from a punchline to an official national-security demand. When Denmark refused to sell part of its sovereign territory, an act that would have been unthinkable in any prior administration the White House escalated. Military pressure followed. So did tariffs. By mid-January, Trump announced a sweeping “Greenland Tax” on eight NATO allies who dared send symbolic forces to defend Danish sovereignty. Ten percent in February. Twenty-five percent by June. Make a deal, or else.
For NATO, this was the moment the mask came off. The United States wasn’t just abandoning the alliance’s spirit; it was actively weaponizing its economic power against its own partners to seize allied territory. European diplomats didn’t mince words. “Blackmail” became the polite term. Others were blunter, warning that Washington now behaved less like a guarantor of stability and more like a revisionist power, one willing to redraw borders by coercion. Congress, alarmed by how close this all came to armed conflict between allies, rushed to introduce legislation literally titled the No Funds for NATO Invasion Act. That sentence alone tells you how far things have slid.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has been shunted to the sidelines like an inconvenient reminder of why NATO existed in the first place. Trump’s administration has preferred private negotiations with Vladimir Putin, most notably at the August 2025 Anchorage Summit conducted without Ukraine or NATO at the table. Intelligence sharing was briefly cut. Weapons deliveries paused. The message to Europe was unmistakable: deterrence is out, deal-making is in, and Ukrainian sovereignty is negotiable. Trump even mused aloud about “land swapping,” floating the idea that occupied Ukrainian territory might simply be signed away to secure a ceasefire. Moscow didn’t need to ask twice.
Who benefits from all this? Strip away the slogans, and the answer is brutally obvious: Russia. The Kremlin’s greatest strategic nightmare for seventy-five years was a unified West bound by an ironclad Article 5. Trump’s approach doesn’t just weaken that guarantee, it turns it into a bargaining chip. Russian officials have openly mocked the spectacle, referring to European leaders as children trying not to “provoke the daddy.” While the West fights itself over tariffs, troop movements, and Arctic real estate, Putin gets exactly what he wants: distraction, division, and doubt.
Yet Trump’s wrecking ball may be forging something Moscow fears even more in the long run. As trust in Washington collapses, Europe is rearming, fast. Germany is breaking taboos. France is pushing a standalone European defense pillar. Whispered conversations in Brussels now include words once considered radioactive: nuclear deterrent. The U.S., by treating allies like extortion targets and adversaries like negotiating partners, is forcing Europe to imagine a future without America at its center.
The irony is thick enough to choke on. In trying to dismantle NATO, Trump may succeed—but not in the way he intends. The alliance isn’t dying; it’s mutating. And when the dust settles, the world may discover that America’s greatest gift to Russia wasn’t capitulation, but the birth of a militarized, independent Europe that no longer needs permission from Washington, or fear from Moscow to defend itself.
Why It Matters
NATO is not just a military alliance, it is the backbone of post-World War II global stability. By converting collective defense into a pay-to-play arrangement and coercing allies with tariffs and territorial threats, the Trump administration has redefined U.S. power from guarantor to extortionist. This shift doesn’t merely weaken alliances; it accelerates global instability, emboldens authoritarian states, and forces Europe to prepare for a world where American commitments are conditional, transactional, and unreliable.
Key Takeaways
- Trump did not withdraw from NATO; he sabotaged it by turning Article 5 into a conditional service.
- Defense spending demands functioned as protection fees rather than alliance commitments.
- The Greenland coercion crisis marked the first time the U.S. economically threatened NATO allies over territorial demands.
- Ukraine was sidelined while Trump pursued private negotiations with Russia.
- The long-term result may be a militarized, independent Europe no longer centered on U.S. leadership.
Further Reading – Bookshop.org
- NATO: The Transatlantic Alliance at Risk — Sten Rynning. A comprehensive analysis of NATO’s internal fractures and the political pressures threatening its survival. https://civilheresy.com/Nato transatlantic alliance at risk
- The Twilight of Democracy — Anne Applebaum. Explores how democratic alliances erode from within when leaders abandon liberal norms. https://civilheresy.com/twilight of democarcy
- The Road to Unfreedom — Timothy Snyder. Examines how authoritarian powers exploit division and institutional decay in the West. https://civilheresy.com/road to unfreedom
