Just don’t forget, Trump is keeping track.
The White House has developed something akin to a “naughty and nice” list of NATO countries, as the Trump administration looks for ways to punish allies who refused to back the Iran war.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth floated the broad idea in December. “Model allies that step up, like Israel, South Korea, Poland, increasingly Germany, the Baltics and others, will receive our special favor,” he said. “Allies that still fail to do their part for collective defense will face consequences.”
It’s not collective defense though, is it. It’s Trump’s personal war, launched and continued without consulting purported allies. Trump doesn’t have any allies, Trump does what Trump feels like doing.
The White House made its frustration with allies clear. “While the United States has always been there for our so-called allies, countries we protect with thousands of troops have not been there for us throughout Operation Epic Fury,” said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly, referring to the Pentagon’s name for the operation. “President Trump has made his thoughts on this unfair dynamic clear, and as he said, the United States will remember.”
But nobody asked him to do any operation epic tantrum; it was all his idea.
But there is little precedent for taking such steps to punish allies, and such notions already face push back on Capitol Hill.
“It is not helpful when American leaders speak of our alliances with derision,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said Tuesday before a hearing on U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific region. “We must be clear about the numerous political, strategic and moral benefits that country receives from its alliances.”
But without slavish obedience what use are those strategic and moral benefits?
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