If President Donald Trump is serious about pulling out of NATO, he would begin first by pulling U.S. troops out of Europe, particularly Germany.
He could use an exit line from Groucho Marx who used to say, “I wouldn’t want to be in any club that would have me as a member.”
The problem for Europe is that without the U.S., there would be no NATO. The U.S founded NATO after World War II to protect Europe from Russia, then the Soviet Union, and has been supporting it ever since.
Back then, NATO was made up of only 12 countries: the U.S., Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United Kingdom.
Now it has 32 members, none of which seem too anxious to help Trump out in Iran or in opening the Hormuz Strait.
The next thing you know, Trump will be opting out of the United Nations, an organization founded and funded by the U.S., that also began after WWII with 50 nation members. It now has 193 members.
Without U.S. financial support, NATO would be like the UN, a club where members talk a lot but accomplish little.
And as far as Russia goes, Europe does not have much to worry about, or so it would appear.
Russia dictator Vladimir Putin cannot even defeat Ukraine, let alone take on Poland.
Even the days when Germany used to invade France are long gone. Which led to the line one day when I asked a German in Munich how long it would take to drive to Paris.
He looked at me with a straight face and said, “By car or by Panzer?”
As of now, the U.S. has some 40,000 troops stationed in Germany to protect it from Russia. Germany has no troops to protect the U.S. from Iran.
When Trump asked for NATO help with Iran, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, “Germany is not part of this war. And we do not want to become part of it.”
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said, “This is not our war.”
To which Trump replied, “Well, Ukraine is not our war (but) we helped.”
The anti-Trump, anti-U.S. sentiment was echoed by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, another stand-up guy, who said, “We are not party to this conflict.”
This is what President Franklin D. Roosevelt could have said had he canceled the June 6, 1944, Normandy invasion that led to the defeat of Nazi Germany and set France free, something the French army, which folded, failed to do.
The key problem is that while the U.S. has poured billions of dollars into Europe, from the Marshall Plan to NATO, the recipients have used that money for their generous cradle to grave welfare programs rather than on their military obligations. And all the while they have been critical of the U.S., which is the hand that fed them.
Trump called the arrangement a one-way street, especially as they rebuffed his request for help with Iran.
The perceptive Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush’s spokesman, put it best when he said, “When this is over, the western part of NATO will never be the same. Spain, England, France and Italy have sold us out, as they too often have a history of doing. Eastern European nations are the heart of NATO. They spend money on defense, know how to fight and love the U.S.”
He had in mind countries like Poland and Hungary, whose people fought off oppressive Soviet communism to become open, free market democrat countries while Germany, France and the UK are being strangled by socialism and unchecked Muslim immigration.
And all the while — some 80 years now — the U.S. has shouldered the cost and burden of providing for their defense while they have wallowed in socialism.
Those days are over.
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com