By Guy Birchall

U.S. President Donald Trump said he is strongly considering withdrawing the United States from NATO, in comments published on April 1.

Trump told UK newspaper The Telegraph in an April 1 interview that he is seriously reconsidering U.S. membership in NATO, saying that his request for assistance in the Strait of Hormuz was a test that allies didn’t pass.

Describing the alliance as a “paper tiger,” Trump said removing the United States from the pact was now “beyond reconsideration.”

“I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way,” Trump said.

The White House said that Trump will deliver a public address about the Iran war on April 1.

Trump called the current reluctance of member states to involve themselves more heavily in the current war with Iran “hard to believe,” adding that he “didn’t do a big sale” or insist on their involvement in the conflict, but rather thought their support “should be automatic.”

“We’ve been there automatically, including Ukraine. Ukraine wasn’t our problem. It was a test, and we were there for them, and we would always have been there for them. They weren’t there for us,” he said.

Trump’s remarks built on U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s comments on March 30, who said Washington must reexamine its relationship with the alliance because members didn’t help the United States in the Iran conflict.

Describing the response of some allies as “very disappointing,” Rubio said that Trump and the United States would have to reconsider the organization after the current conflict ends.

“One of the reasons why NATO is beneficial to the United States is it gives us basing rights for contingencies. It allows us to station troops and aircraft and weapons in parts of the world that we wouldn’t normally have bases, and that includes in much of Europe,” he said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio listens as President Donald Trump speaks to members of the press before departing the White House on March 20, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

“And to see that in a time of need—the United States has identified a grave risk to our national security and our national interest, and we needed to conduct this operation, and we have countries like Spain, a NATO member that we are pledged to defend, denying us the use of their airspace and bragging about it, denying us the use of our—of their bases. And there are other countries that have done that as well.”

Rubio added that one had to ask, if this is the case, “What is in it for the United States?” stipulating that he has been a big supporter of NATO, but that support was given on the assumption that U.S. basing rights in Europe ”give us flexibility in operational capability all over the world.”

“But if NATO is just about us defending Europe if they’re attacked, but then denying us basing rights when we need them, that’s not a very good arrangement,” he said, adding that it is a “hard one to stay engaged in and say this is good for the United States.”

Rubio’s comments followed the Spanish government’s closure of its airspace to U.S. aircraft involved in the conflict with Iran on March 25.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has been among the most vocal critics ​of the U.S. and Israeli strikes. Spanish ​Defense Minister Margarita Robles said Spain ⁠will only allow for the use of its bases for the collective defense of NATO allies.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius recently described the Iran conflict as an economic “catastrophe” during a visit to Australia on March 26.

He also said that Germany did not want to be drawn further into the conflict.

“Nobody asked us before. It’s not our war, and therefore we don’t want to get sucked into that war, to make it crystal clear,” he said.

In a March 30 post on X, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, “We aren’t getting dragged into the Middle East conflict.”

Collective defense lies at the heart of the NATO alliance, which was formed in 1949 with the primary aim of countering the risk of Soviet attack on allied territory.

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty states “that an armed attack against one NATO member shall be considered an attack against them all,” according to NATO.

NATO invoked Article 5 in response to terrorist attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, the only time it has been invoked in the alliance’s history.