Trump's NATO vision spells trouble for the alliance

Call for higher arms spending and threat of grabbing allies' land dial up pressure on members

- Daniel Michaels

President-elect Donald Trump's latest demands of America's NATO partners—that they cede territory to the U.S. and spend more on defense than Washington itself does—risk undermining allies' confidence and potentially emboldening adversaries.

In a press conference Tuesday, Trump raised the prospect of forcibly taking over Canada and Greenland, which is part of Denmark. Canada and Denmark are founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the U.S. is treaty-bound to protect them.

The president-elect also said NATO allies should raise their military spending target to around 5% of gross domestic product from the current target of at least 2%. The U.S. last year spent roughly 3.4% of GDP on its military, in line with recent years, according to NATO.

Trump's comments Tuesday can be seen as opening bids in hard-nosed negotiations more than policy statements, some analysts and Trump advisers argued. Still, they are unprecedented. Never before has someone elected as U.S. president publicly discussed using military force or other coercive measures to take over either parts or all of closely allied countries or demanded such high levels of military spending.

Low defense spending by Canada and European members of NATO has long angered Trump, who during his first term threatened to withdraw from the alliance if outlays didn't increase. He has said European countries should reimburse the U.S. for decades of protection and has called them freeloaders for not adequately funding their own security.

The new pressure from Trump comes amid deep uncertainty over his approach to the war in Ukraine. Under President Biden, NATO members have largely been unified on the need to support Kyiv in its fight to eject Russian forces.