Trump’s NATO Remarks Renew Worries about U.S. Commitment to Alliance, N.K. Deterrence

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — Former President Donald Trump’s recent controversial remarks on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is stoking a renewed yet consequential question for South Korea: Would America’s security commitment remain steadfast in the midst of seemingly unbridled North Korean threats?

During a campaign rally in South Carolina on Saturday, Trump said that if reelected, he would “encourage” Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to “delinquent” NATO members that fail to meet their defense spending commitments.

The remarks caused consternation not only among NATO allies, but also with South Korea that relies on its sole treaty ally, the United States, for nuclear deterrence at a time when the North has called the South its “primary” foe, and escalated tensions with formidable weapons tests.

Some observers wrote off the former president’s apparent spur-of-the moment remarks merely as part of an emotional stump speech, but they resonated deeply in South Korea, where a debate over whether Seoul should pursue its nuclear armament to counter North Korean threats still lingers.

For U.S. allies, Trump’s comment on NATO was a sobering reminder of his apparently transactional foreign policy approach — one that could trigger a strategic question over whether Seoul should consider any hedging strategy to provide for its own defense in a more assured and resilient manner.

Mindful of concerns among allies, President Joe Biden lambasted Trump’s remarks as “dumb,” “shameful,” “dangerous” and “un-American.”

“He doesn’t understand that NATO is built on fundamental principles of freedom, security and national sovereignty because for Trump, principles never matter. Everything is transactional,” Biden said in a speech on Tuesday.

Biden added, “Our adversaries have long sought to create cracks in the alliance. The greatest hope of all those who wish America harm is for NATO to fall apart.”

But Trump’s remarks on the stump have already created deep agita among U.S. allies.

“Trump’s comments damage the credibility of U.S. commitments to come to the defense of its allies. If he were to be reelected, even if he did not act on his words, allies would question his intentions and his reliability,” Charles Kupchan, professor of international affairs at Georgetown University, told Yonhap News Agency via email.

“The network of close alliances that Biden has invested in would inevitably suffer. Allies would be forced to consider alternative pathways to ensuring their security,” he added.

Some analysts viewed Trump’s comment as a politically-driven one as he seeks to return to the White House for a second term.

“Governing seems a secondary or even tertiary interest of the former president’s remarks,” Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, said. “Gaining notoriety by being disruptive and contrarian is the primary and thus political consideration.”

Trump’s reverberating remarks came amid mounting concerns in South Korea that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s bellicose rhetoric against Seoul and his regime’s relentless weapons tests might signal his intention to undertake major provocations ahead of parliamentary elections in the South or the U.S. presidential vote in November.

Some even raised the specter of an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula, though many others dismissed such speculation, arguing that a country — preparing for immediate war — would not sell weapons as seen in Pyongyang’s supplies of ballistic missiles and munitions to Russia.

Public angst in the South has also deepened as burgeoning military cooperation between the North and Russia is injecting new complexities into deterrence efforts by Seoul and Washington.

Against this backdrop, Trump’s comment posed a question over whether Seoul’s efforts to reinforce the alliance with the Joe Biden administration, including the establishment of the Nuclear Consultative Group, a bilateral deterrence dialogue, would remain durable beyond the Biden era.

Moreover, the question could likely fuel a debate in South Korea over whether it should explore a way to reduce its security dependency on the U.S. and pursue sufficient independent defense capabilities, like Japan seeking “counter-strike” capabilities in a shift further away from its exclusively defense-oriented policy.

“(Trump’s) comments may well stoke Korean discussion of nuclear armament, especially if Trump repeats his statements,” Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corp., told Yonhap News via email.

Bennett added, “If Trump’s statements were just an accidental burst of emotion, he may well pull back from them in a less political environment.”

Taking stock of what happened during the first-term Trump administration from 2017-2021, policymakers in Seoul have been bracing for a potential shift in America’s foreign policy tiller in case of Trump’s return to the White House.

For instance, Seoul has recently been in talks with Washington over what would be an earlier-than-usual resumption of negotiations on the cost sharing for stationing U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) — an issue that threatened to undermine the alliance during Trump’s presidency.

In 2019, then President Trump reportedly called for a fivefold increase in Seoul’s contributions for the upkeep of USFK to US$5 billion, sparking fears of a chasm in the alliance.

Adding to public angst in the South is Trump’s repeated boast that he does “get along well” with the North Korean leader — a potential bromance that analysts said might help create an opening for reengagement with the North but could come at the expense of the decadeslong Seoul-Washington alliance.

During his first term in office, Trump engaged in direct personal diplomacy with Kim, which sometimes raised speculation that he could bring up issues of the South Korea-U.S. alliance, such as one related to the U.S. troop level on the peninsula during his talks with Kim.

In the midst of unease over Trump’s perception of alliances, Andrew Yeo, the SK-Korea Foundation chair at the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies, highlighted the presence of “strong” supporters for the Seoul-Washington relationship.

“Trump’s relationship with NATO was more fraught than alliances in Asia. So I suspect he may be tougher with NATO allies, but South Korea will not get a free pass,” Yeo told Yonhap News via email.

“That said, there will be strong supporters of the U.S.-South Korea alliance who might help restrain some of the worst tendencies of Trump, and South Koreans may be able to persuade Trump of the value of the U.S.-South Korea alliance. So I don’t expect the alliance itself to fall apart,” he added.

Trump’s rhetoric on NATO drew particular attention in Seoul as South Korea has been trying to deepen its partnership with the alliance as part of its Asia-Pacific partner countries that include Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

In a sign of deeper cooperation with the security bloc, Seoul established a mission to NATO in Brussels in November 2022.

(Yonhap)