U.S. foreign policy has taken a dramatic shift during the first month of the Trump administration, which has extended an olive branch to Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, in attempts to end the nearly three-year-old war in Ukraine.
But the change is unnerving NATO allies, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, especially given President Donald Trump's recent criticisms of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. officials starting peace talks with Russia first in finding a way to stop the fighting.
American and European supporters of NATO, a military alliance formed to thwart the threat of Soviet Union aggression during the Cold War, said that by siding with Russia, Europe's long-standing adversary, Trump has seriously damaged the deterrence that comes from the alliance's ironclad commitment to collective defense.
"The first time one NATO member thinks the others won't defend it, that's the beginning of the end," Peter Bator, a former ambassador to NATO from the Slovak Republic, told the Journal.
During his first term, Trump criticized NATO allies for not meeting spending commitments and exploiting American protection. At a NATO summit in 2018, he threatened to withdraw the U.S. from NATO if allies didn't provide more defense funding.
According to NATO data, 23 of the bloc's 31 nations were expected to meet the required threshold of spending 2% of their gross domestic product on defense (Iceland is exempt because it doesn't have a military). Although that total has more than doubled since 2023, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly told NATO counterparts in Brussels last week that Trump has a goal for each country to spend 5% of GDP on defense.
"The United States remains committed to the NATO alliance and to the defense partnership with Europe," Hegseth said, according to the Journal. "Full stop."
But officials who have spent time in NATO said the Trump administration is sending a different message: It doesn't support them. And they fear Putin will feel emboldened to attack NATO territory in some way.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recently returned from meetings in Ukraine and Europe. She said Wednesday that Trump's actions amount to appeasement and give "Vladimir Putin the opportunity, if he's not stopped in Ukraine, to go into a NATO ally," according to the Journal.
If that happens, she said it would trigger Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which states an attack on one country is considered an attack on all, potentially pulling the U.S. into a war.
The moves by the Trump administration are considered by some as an effort to jolt allies into action.
"Trump's comments are so disconnected from reality and the prevailing NATO line to date that they are having a significant shock effect," retired Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Davis, a former senior civilian official at NATO, told the Journal. "If Trump's line of attack continues, he is likely to cause greater mistrust and resistance and less cooperation and support from NATO allies for U.S. efforts to end the Ukraine conflict."
The impact of the Trump administration's shift could take time to emerge.
"We are at the very beginning of what is probably a lengthy process," Bator said. "It seems Trump has a much more detailed plan for how to make Europeans finally wake up than he has for what to do with Russia and how to end the conflict in Ukraine."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.