1. You probably don't realize how many Americans feel about NATO. We are all-in on NATO, but we are pissed that too many EU countries always take advantage of the US. For example, the US spends more than $800b a year on defense, including about $25b a year just to keep troops in the EU to protect them from Russia. Then as Trump notes, Germany and other NATO countries buy gas from Russia funding their military!!! WTF?? Why should the US spend money to defend the EU from Russia if the EU is funding Russia's military? It makes no sense. Then on top of that, Trump noted that many NATO countries are not meeting their military spending commitments, just freeloading off the US. I don't think Trump threatened pulling out of NATO, but maybe pulling some US troops out of the EU. Most Americans agreed with Trump, especially on defense spending.
How much does each country in the military alliance contribute to NATO defense spending? We break it down with this map.
www.visualcapitalist.com
2. There was no fracture of NATO under Trump either. No one severed diplomatic relations under Trump either. No one held Trump in CONTEMPT. No one pulled their ambassador under Trump. Trump made NATO stronger just in time. Biden is a disaster. Trump was a much better president.
1. I'm very aware that most Americans believe in NATO. With respect to your feelings of being "taken advantage of", speaking as someone from the REST of the world, here is our take on your view. YOU waste a LOT of money on a large bloated military, you really don't need. YOU spend more than the next 10 nations combined, and 9 of those 10 nations are your allies. NOBODY asks you to do this. You'd be spending this amount with or without NATO.
YOU just want us to spend money we don't need to spend, primarily because most of us don't make weapons of war, we have to buy them from YOU. This is a push to sell American made weapons and munitions. We agreed to raise our defense spending to 2% of GDP when Obama was President, and all but one or two small Europeans were fully up to date and track with that increase, when Donald Trump went to Brussels and made an fool of himself at the NATO meeting, and world leaders laughed at him as he spoke.
NATO waited out the Trump Presidency in the hopes that Trump will be gone, but had Trump been re-elected, he would have taken the USA out of NATO. His advisors kept him from doing it in his first term, and with Stoltenberg flattering and placating Trump, it was enough. To say that the rest of NATO, thinks Donald Trump is a total ass, is beyond doubt.
2. NATO was deeply fractured under TRUMP. All faith and trust of the USA as the leader of the free world is GONE. Not just for his military blunders, but because he tore up all your trade deals. Those of us in the rest of the world no longer trust the USA on ANY score, because of the risk of Trump, or someone just like him, being elected.
I know that Trump voters think that Trump is reviled world-wide because of his "America First" policies. Quite the contrary, there is little about Trump's policies that puts "America First". Tearing up all of your trade deals at the same time, instead of re-negotiating them one by left, has resulted in a 15% increase in your trade deficit.
Canada has been running a trade deficit with the USA all of my life. Now, thanks to Donald Trump and his USA-Canada-Mexico Trade Agreement, we're running a trade surplus, not just in hard goods, but overall, we are now in a trade surplus position for the first time in our history.
Your trading partners weren't "screwing you over" or "stealing your jobs". American corporations were GIVING them your jobs, and your proprietary designs and data, so the corporations could avoid environmental laws, and labour laws, make MORE MONEY. And the American government supports this behaviour with tax breaks, and protections, to protect those profits, at the expense of the American workers.
Trump mouthed the words "American First", but at all times it's billionaires and large corporations first, and **** the working people.