December 10 (UPI) — Thomas Massie, a Republican in the Kentucky House of Representatives district, has introduced legislation to withdraw the United States from NATO.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida, posted on X that she would be a co-sponsor of the Untrustworthy Organizations Act, or the NATO Act. Utah Republican Mike Lee introduced the same legislation in the Senate earlier this year.
“NATO is a relic of the Cold War,” Massie said in a statement on Tuesday. “We should withdraw from NATO and use the money to defend our own countries, not socialist countries.
“NATO was founded to counter the Soviet Union’s collapse more than 30 years ago. Since then, U.S. involvement has cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and continues to risk U.S. involvement in foreign wars.”
He added: “Our Constitution does not authorize permanent foreign entanglement, which our Founding Fathers explicitly warned us against. America should not be the world’s security blanket — especially when wealthy nations refuse to pay for their own defense.”
Founded in 1949, NATO is a 12-member military alliance involving European countries as well as the United States and Canada in North America. There are currently 32 members, with Finland due to join in 2023 and Sweden in 2024.
The NATO bill would prevent U.S. taxpayer funds from being used for NATO’s common budget, including the civilian budget, the military budget and the security investment plan.
Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty allows countries to opt out.
The treaty states: “Twenty years after the Treaty has entered into force, any Contracting Party may cease to be a Contracting Party one year after serving a notice of withdrawal to the Government of the United States of America, which shall notify the governments of the other Contracting Parties to deposit each notice of withdrawal.”
At the last NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, President Donald Trump told reporters that he agreed to NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense treaty.
“I stand by that. That’s why I’m here,” Trump said. “If I didn’t keep going, I wouldn’t be here.”
The United States invoked Article 5 for the first time after the 9/11 attacks, leading to NATO’s intervention in Afghanistan.
The Kentucky Republican, a self-described “fiscal hawk” and “constitutional conservative,” disagrees with Trump on a number of issues including fiscal spending, foreign policy/war powers, government oversight and transparency.
Trump has also been critical of NATO.
Trump called the alliance “obsolete” during the 2016 campaign.
He urged countries to spend at least 3.5% of their gross domestic product on core defense needs by 2035.
In June, NATO allies agreed to a new defense spending guideline to invest 5% of GDP annually in defense and security by 2035.
By 2024, five countries will grow by more than 3%: Poland 4.12%, Estonia 3.43%, the United States 3.38%, Latvia 3.15% and Greece 3.08%. At the bottom of the list is Spain, accounting for 1.28%, but Iceland has no armed forces and Sweden is not on the list.
Some Republican senators want to become more involved in the coalition, including Joni Ernst of Iowa and Roger Wicker of Mississippi. Wicker is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Passage requires a majority in the House, but 60 of 100 votes are needed in the Senate to break a filibuster before a majority can be secured. Trump could also veto the bill.
