Trump says he’s considering pulling out of NATO, calls it a ‘paper tiger’ – National
Trump called the 77-year-old U.S.-led military alliance a “paper tiger” and said Russian President Vladimir Putin “knows that too,” in an interview with the Telegraph.
Trump, who has been frustrated by U.S. allies refusing to get involved in the U.S. war on Iran and the subsequent efforts to force Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to full international traffic, was asked in the interview if he would reconsider ending U.S. membership in the alliance.
“Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration. I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way,” Trump said in the interview.
The Strait of Hormuz accounts for one-third of the global oil trade and has been closed for weeks, with Iran blockading the key waterway as it exchanges strikes with the U.S. and Israel.
Trump said he was frustrated with allies “not being there” to help the U.S.
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“Beyond not being there, it was actually hard to believe. And I didn’t do a big sale. I just said, ‘Hey,’ you know, I didn’t insist too much. I just think it should be automatic,” he said.
Trump’s explanations for why the U.S. launched the attacks on Iran have shifted repeatedly over recent weeks since the war began on Feb. 28.
Earlier this month, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said NATO had not received a formal request from Washington for member countries to formally launch efforts to secure the Strait of Hormuz.
“To our knowledge, a request has not been made to NATO for the type of assistance that is being requested and Canada, as a founding member of NATO, continues to support the principles of collective defence,” she said.
In his Telegraph interview, Trump said the U.S. has “been there” to support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.
“We’ve been there automatically, including Ukraine. Ukraine wasn’t our problem. It was a test, and we were there for them, and we would always have been there for them. They weren’t there for us,” he said.
Trump has long criticized NATO members for not increasing their defence spending. In June 2025, Canada joined other NATO countries in pledging five per cent of its budget on defence spending by 2035.
Last week, NATO confirmed that Canada has hit its target of spending two per cent of its GDP on national defence by March of this year.
Trump on Wednesday also claimed that Iran’s president wanted a ceasefire ahead of his speech to the American people set for later this evening.
Trump made the claim on his Truth Social website. Iran had no immediate response to Trump’s post.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in an interview with Al Jazeera aired late Tuesday, signalled Tehran’s willingness to keep fighting.
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“You cannot speak to the people of Iran in the language of threats and deadlines,” he said. “We do not set any deadline for defending ourselves.”
Trump’s expectation that NATO allies help him with his military operations in Iran runs contrary to the purpose of the alliance, said David Perry, president and CEO of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
“It is meant to be a defensive alliance to protect all members of the wider alliance structure and is supposed to operate by consensus,” Perry said.
While Trump has threatened the alliance in the past, Canadians should take his threats seriously, Perry said.
“The U.S. Congress took it seriously enough that they passed a measure that would make it more difficult for the president to just withdraw on his own volition,” he said, referring to a 2023 measure included in the National Defense Authorization Act.
The measure was spearheaded by then-Senator Marco Rubio, who now serves as Trump’s Secretary of State, and was signed into law by former President Joe Biden.
In addition to the U.S. spending more than all other members of the alliance combined on defence, NATO also depends on the U.S. for intelligence, logistics support, combat search and rescue, aerial refueling, airborne command and control, Perry said.
“The alliance disproportionately relies on the United States, still,” he said.
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The “friction” in NATO is beneficial to Russian interests, he added.
“All of the open friction and animosity we’ve seen in the NATO alliance, just in 2026, would be something that the Kremlin would have written about in their dream journal,” Perry said.
— with files from The Associated Press.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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