What happens if the U.S. pulls out of NATO?

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🗓️ 1 April 2026

⏱️ 21 minutes

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Summary

President Trump is threatening to pull out of NATO, calling the alliance a "paper tiger." Trump and NATO allies in Europe have been at odds since his first term, but the relationship hit a new low following Trump's decision in late February to go to war in Iran without first consulting them. Now, Trump is criticizing allies for not helping the U.S. military. Julianne Smith, former ambassador to NATO under the Biden administration, joins us. Then, the Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday on President Trump's executive order that attempts to end birthright citizenship, which makes almost every child born in the U.S. a citizen. In an unprecedented move, Trump sat in on the oral arguments. We speak with Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute, and Kim Wehle, former assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. And, Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that seeks to create a national list of citizens who are eligible to vote in each state, and then directs the U.S. Postal Service to only send mail-in ballots to verified voters. But election experts and state officials in Arizona and Oregon say the order is unconstitutional. We hear from Rick Hasen, director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	WBUR Podcasts, Boston.
0:07.0	Allies are taking this comment quite seriously, although to be honest, it's not the first time that they've heard something like this.
0:14.5	President Trump has threatened to leave NATO before.
0:17.5	Question is, will he follow through this time?
0:28.6	No. before. Question is, will he follow through this time? It's Wednesday, April 1st, and this is here and now anytime from NPR and WBUR Boston.
0:34.9	I'm Shiko Thio.
0:38.8	Today on the show, the Supreme Court heard arguments today in a landmark case that could
0:43.7	redefine who gets to be an American citizen. And President Trump has signed an executive order
0:49.2	that seeks to create a national list of citizens who are eligible to vote in each state.
0:54.7	Election experts say it's unconstitutional.
0:57.9	So there's really nothing in the Constitution that gives the president the power over elections.
1:02.8	And that's something that was recognized when Trump tried to do an earlier executive order about a year ago
1:08.0	trying to mess with how federal registration rules were going to work.
1:13.7	But first, President Trump's latest threat to pull out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
1:19.5	may be his most serious. It comes at a time of great strain between the U.S. and its NATO allies,
1:26.3	as most have refused to back the U.S. Israeli
1:28.6	war on Iran. In an interview with the British news site, The Telegraph, Trump called NATO a, quote,
1:34.7	paper tiger and said he is strongly considering a U.S. exit from the near 80-year-old alliance.
1:41.6	Whether Trump really means it is one thing, but Julianne Smith says the
1:45.9	consequences of the war in Iran is another and could have dire consequences for the European
1:50.9	allies. Smith served as permanent ambassador to NATO under the Biden administration. She's now
1:56.8	president of Clarion Strategies, a geostrategic advisory firm. Here's her conversation with Scott Tong.
	...

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