US NATO ambassador ‘not worried’ for the alliance if Trump returns

The U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Julianne Smith, said she was “not worried” about former President Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House.

“The NATO alliance enjoys deep bipartisan support across Congress and amongst the American people,” Smith said Wednesday during the annual POLITICO 28 ranking gala.

“And I’m not worried. I think he [Trump] knows that it’s in a really good spot back home,” she added.

Trump announced last month that he would run for a second term in 2024. During his presidency, he frequently criticized NATO members for not meeting the alliance’s spending targets.

In 2018, he threatened that the U.S. would go its “own way” if the other member countries did not increase their financial commitments to NATO.

Two years later, John Bolton — Trump’s former national security adviser — judged there was a “very real risk” the U.S. would withdraw from NATO if Trump were reelected.

Created to counterbalance the rise of the Soviet Union after World War II, NATO was catapulted back into the spotlight by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

Since then, a “majority” of alliance members have “committed to investing more, and more quickly, on defence,” according to the organization.

In September, Ukraine requested an accelerated process to join NATO, a move that has long been considered a red line by Moscow, which sees the military alliance’s eastern expansion in the last few decades as a threat to its security.