Since his re-election, President Trump has threatened to leave the NATO alliance several times. On Wednesday, he did it again, frustrated that European nations had refused to join the so-far indecisive United States-Israeli war against Iran.
(Mr. Trump added in the interview with The Telegraph of London that the the countries are "cowards" and the alliance a "paper tiger".)
And after his speech
On Thursday, speaking in Seoul, President Emmanuel Macron of France was explicit: Mr. Trump was undermining NATO with his repeated threats to pull out of it.
“If you create daily doubt about your commitment, you hollow it out,” he said.
This is where the fun comes in:
Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, reflecting Mr. Trump’s unhappiness with European allies, warned that relations with NATO would need to be re-examined after the war in Iran is resolved.
“Without the United States, there is no NATO,” Mr. Rubio said. “An alliance has to be mutually beneficial. It cannot be a one-way street. Let’s hope we can fix it.”
He added "I think there's no doubt, unfortunately, after this conflict is concluded, we are going to have to reexamine that relationship. We're going to have to reexamine the value of NATO and that alliance for our country."
Now, that is interesting given that it was less than three years ago that Florida senator Rubio
cosponsored legislation impeding President Joe Biden from unilaterally ejecting America from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Senate Joint Resolution 37 would require the “advice and consent of the Senate or an Act of Congress to suspend, terminate, or withdraw the United States” from NATO.
Rubio exclaimed he is “proud to reintroduce this bipartisan bill with @timkaine to ensure that no US president can make the decision to leave NATO without Congressional approval.”
The resolution would freeze any funds needed to complete the president’s attempted estrangement from NATO and authorize the Congressional Legal Counsel to legally challenge the move.
The measure ultimately was included in the 2024 National Defense Reauthorization Act, enacted on December 2, 2023.
So Marco Rubio was in favor of NATO before he was against it. He stood firm for the alliance when it was unnecessry, back when the President of the United States of America himself was committed to upholding it. Now when his support is needed, he has turned away.
This is due to more than naked parisanship. When they were both presidential hopefuls, Donald Trump ridiculed Rubio because "I've never seen anybody sweat like that and you know a lot of these guys are serious sweaters." He called him "Marco 'Amnesty' Rubio," a "lightweight" who is "just another all talk, no action politician."
Trump called the Senator "Little Marco". He still is Little Marco, a zero trying to be a one. Donald Trump had him pegged from day one as someone whose convictions will always give way to expedience, a classic lapdog.
No comments:
Post a Comment