Fear, but not panic, in Europe, after Trump threat to leave Nato
By Andrew Rettman, The EUobserver, 01 April 2026
BRUSSELS- The US president has explicitly said he was considering leaving Nato, as the EU prepares to fund Ukraine despite being legally blocked by Hungary.
Donald Trump said so in an interview with British daily The Telegraph, published on Wednesday (1 April).
“Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration. I was never swayed by Nato. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and [Russian president Vladimir] Putin knows that too, by the way,” he said.
He spoke after Nato members Italy, France, and Spain refused to let him use their bases or airspace in his war of aggression against Iran.
His Telegraph remarks were the most explicit yet on a possible US Nato-exit, and echoed similar remarks by US secretary state Marco Rubio and defence chief Pete Hegseth on Monday and Tuesday.
It was, however, unclear if this was now official US policy, which would require an act of the US Congress and a formal notification to Nato under Article 13 of its treaty, leading to a legal exit one year later.
Trump has a habit of personally phoning journalists, such as Financial Times’ Washington columnist Edward Luce, to air self-contradictory foreign policy ideas, which lead to no action.
But he also told Reuters he would “absolutely” repeat his Nato threat in a speech on TV due later on Wednesday.
No Nato or EU response
Neither Nato nor the EU responded to his comments.
The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, called it “pressure” and “noise”, saying: “Whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I’m going to act in the British national interest … this is not our war, and we’re not going to get dragged into it”.
But he also said he would seek closer defence ties with the EU at a summit later this year in view of US behaviour.
“When it comes to defence and security and our economic future, we have to have closer ties with Europe,” he told press in London on Wednesday.
The French junior defence minister, Alice Rufo, also said on Wednesday that Trump’s pressure would not work.
“Let me remind you what Nato is. It is a military alliance concerned with the security of the Euro-Atlantic region. It is not designed to carry out operations in the Strait of Hormuz, which would be a breach of international law,” she said at a conference in Paris, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, even if the US stayed in Nato, or left only its command structures, as with France and Greece in the past, Trump’s escalating anti-Nato rhetoric meant its Article V deterrent against Russia was de facto no longer active and made Putin more likely to attack Europe, an EU diplomat said.
“The French and the British know this and are preparing for war with Russia. The Polish government too,” he said.
“Will there be panic in Europe? Depends when Moscow attacks. I personally think it will be this year, in which case we’re not ready … Ukraine gave us four years to prepare and we wasted them,” he added.
And if Putin held back, it still meant he could leverage the fear caused by Trump to gain concessions from EU states.
“Putin loves fear. He plays with it … You can rule and negotiate with fear, especially fear among the elites,” the EU diplomat said.
A Ukrainian diplomat said: “We are approaching another security abyss in Europe, outside of any architecture [if the US really left Nato]”.
“But even bullshit said by the US president influences the fragile security environment,” he added.
Author
Andrew RettmanAndrew Rettman is EUobserver’s foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.
