NATO’s dialogues: America’s (next) threat to go
The Intelligence from The Economist
The Economist
4.5 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2026
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
President Donald Trump has long threatened to pull America out of the alliance. We examine why the Iran war has made this time look significantly more serious. Westerners are fleeing their countries in record numbers—with economic consequences for their origins and destinations. And our series profiling the countries contesting the World Cup starts with Spain.
Guests and host:
- Anton La Guardia, diplomatic editor
- Callum Williams, senior economics writer
- Jon Fasman, senior culture correspondent
- Rosie Blau, co-host of “The Intelligence”
- Jason Palmer, co-host of “The Intelligence”
Topics covered:
- NATO, war in Iran, Donald Trump, Mark Rutte
- expats, emigration, economics
- World Cup, Spain
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Economist |
| 0:02.0 | Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. |
| 0:12.0 | I'm Rosie Bloor. |
| 0:15.0 | And I'm Jason Palmer. |
| 0:17.0 | Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. |
| 0:27.8 | Immigration is frequently in the headlines, |
| 0:31.4 | but people spend far less time thinking about its reverse. |
| 0:32.4 | Emigration. |
| 0:35.8 | Now our correspondents have done the number crunching on that, |
| 0:37.9 | with some surprising results. |
| 0:44.7 | And our culture correspondent is looking ahead to the World Cup, and will in the weeks until then be profiling 10 of the countries in the tournament, from perennial top contenders to those |
| 0:50.0 | on a first appearance. Today, we're going to Spain. |
| 1:09.9 | Thank you. on a first appearance. Today, we're going to Spain. But first... From the Suez Crisis to the Vietnam War to the invasion of Iraq, non-European wars have a way of tugging at the fabric of NATO. |
| 1:18.7 | Given President Donald Trump's long-standing animus towards the alliance, and perhaps a misunderstanding of what its charter actually stipulates about mutual aid, this time it may be torn apart. |
| 1:28.3 | Mark Ruta, NATO's chief, attended a closed-door meeting yesterday with Mr. Trump, |
| 1:33.3 | presumably to smooth, ruffled feathers. |
| 1:36.3 | And then he headed to CNN to chat about it. |
| 1:38.3 | Let me be absolutely clear. He is clearly disappointed and with many NATO allies. And I can see his point. But at the same time, |
| 1:48.0 | I was also able to point into the fact that the large majority of European nations has been helpful. |
| 1:56.0 | That might not be enough. Member states may have upped their defense spending in response to Mr. Trump's first-term threats |
| 2:03.1 | to leave the alliance. |
| 2:04.6 | But there's more than their failure to uniformly do his bidding this time that gives today's |
... |
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