Democrats Should Tell Our NATO Allies Trump Can’t Quit Them

Asked at a St. Patrick’s Day Oval Office press conference if he was making progress “getting America’s allies to assist” in escorting oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump went on a trademark rant.  

“All of the NATO allies agreed with us, but they don’t want to, despite the fact that we help them so much,” he claimed. Nevertheless, he displayed a nonchalant attitude: “I’ve long said that I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us. So, this was a great test because we don’t need them.” Asked directly if he was thinking about “getting out” of NATO, Trump replied, “It’s certainly something that we should think about. I don’t need Congress for that decision.” 

Representative Jim McGovern, the Massachusetts Democrat and ranking member on the House Rules Committee, shot back on X and Bluesky, responding to a video clip of the exchange with a pithy, “Yes, you do.” 

McGovern is correct. Since Trump appears poised to try to pull out of NATO—formally, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—McGovern’s fellow Democrats should join him and vociferously assert that pulling out of the 77-year-old compact without Congress would not only be wrong but illegal. 

As the name says, NATO is a treaty. Under the U.S. Constitution, the president has the power “to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.” Once ratified, treaties join the Constitution and the “Laws of the United States” as “the supreme Law of the Land.” No repeal process is specified in the Constitution, but as Thomas Jefferson’s Manual of Parliamentary Practice explained, “Treaties being declared, equally with the laws of the United States, to be the supreme law of the land, it is understood that an act of the legislature alone can declare them infringed and rescinded.” In 1798, that’s how Congress and President John Adams rescinded treaties with France. 

However, that precedent faded in the 20th century as presidents increasingly asserted executive authority to exit treaties. In 1978, a group of conservative lawmakers, led by Senator Barry Goldwater, sued President Jimmy Carter for withdrawing from a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan. A splintered Supreme Court threw out the Goldwater v. Carter case, with Justice William Rehnquist, then the most conservative of the justices, and three of his peers declaring the matter a “nonjusticiable political dispute that should be left for resolution by the Executive and Legislative Branches of the Government.” Lower-court judges relied on the concurring yet controlling opinion in Goldwater to dismiss similar lawsuits after Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush unilaterally withdrew from treaties.  

In 2023—amid Russia’s imperialist war against Ukraine just outside NATO’s umbrella, and the prospect of Donald Trump or a politician similarly antagonistic to NATO someday assuming the presidency—a bipartisan group of senators followed Rehnquist’s cue. They introduced legislation preventing any president from withdrawing from NATO without agreement from two-thirds of the Senate, or “an Act of Congress.”  

One co-sponsoring senator said, “NATO serves as an essential military alliance that protects shared national interests and enhances America’s international presence. Any decision to leave the alliance should be rigorously debated and considered by the U.S. Congress with the input of the American people.” That was then-Senator Marco Rubio. 

Later that year, the bill’s language was incorporated into a broader defense bill and signed into law by President Joe Biden. Let’s call it the Rubio Law. And the Rubio Law has satisfied the Rehnquist standard: the political matter of establishing a process of withdrawal from NATO has achieved “resolution by the Executive and Legislative Branches of the Government.” 

Of course, as his comments this week indicate, Trump would never obey that law. If he chooses to withdraw from NATO, he will declare the Rubio Law an unconstitutional encroachment of his executive powers. Meanwhile, Trump could recall the NATO ambassador and refuse to participate in joint military exercises.  

Democrats can’t stop Trump from disrupting NATO. (Only the stock market appears to have that power, as a Dow Jones dip seems to have scared Trump from swiping Greenland from fellow NATO signatory Denmark.) But they can forcefully state that such actions would be Trump’s mere whims, and not the nation’s legally binding word. In turn, Democrats can urge NATO not to acknowledge any “notice of denunciation.” 

That’s the phrase used in Article 13 of the NATO treaty: “[A]ny Party may cease to be a Party one year after its notice of denunciation has been given to the Government of the United States of America, which will inform the Governments of the other Parties of the deposit of each notice of denunciation.”  

As the American government plays a direct role in the notification process and no other steps for withdrawal are delineated in NATO’s 1949 treaty, Trump would be able to both issue the notification and distribute it. But Democrats could counter with their own message to our NATO allies: Trump’s notice violates American law, so turn off any one-year countdown and keep the American seat warm. A pro-NATO successor to Trump (*fingers crossed*) will be coming soon.  

On top of that, Democrats could also take Trump to court, with a strong chance of winning. Yes, this Supreme Court is often deferential to executive power. But it did reject Trump’s claim to emergency tariff powers based on a plain reading of the relevant statute. And the text of the law regarding withdrawal from NATO could not be more succinct, and the intent clearer. Notably, Chief Justice John Roberts had a special relationship with Rehnquist. He was a clerk and protégé of Rehnquist and took his seat as chief justice upon Rehnquist’s death in 2005. 

But where a suit could founder is on the question of “standing.” The current Republican-controlled Congress would never pass a resolution committing either chamber to filing a lawsuit. Even if Democrats enjoy a Blue Wave midterm, Republicans in the next Senate would probably filibuster any such resolution. But a Democratic rump group could proceed with a lawsuit, and the Court could conclude it doesn’t speak for the entire body and therefore can’t be a plaintiff. Democrats could skip the judicial proceedings entirely and instead inform our NATO allies that they should disregard Trump’s notice. What should not be an option is the odious pre-capitulation to Trump that we’ve seen at major law firms.  

As I have previously written, the key to preventing the Trump presidency from leaving our institutions unsalvageable is knowing that many of his unilateral transgressions are reversible. Our European friends don’t want Trump to sabotage the 77-year-old alliance. They need to know they need not accept any unilateral or illegal withdrawal from the treaty that’s kept the nuclear peace and contained Russian imperialism. They need to know Democrats will follow Representative McGovern and fight like hell.