President Donald John Trump has never been happy with U.S. participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Instead of a partnership between allies, he apparently thinks it should be run like a protection racket, where member nations pay tribute to America for protection and follow the U.S. lead in everything.

In his first term he was constantly demanding they start contributing more to their own defense or he would pull America out. (There was also the argument that letting America do all the heavy lifting was subsidizing NATO member economies at U.S. expense.)

NATO members did start increasing investment in their militaries, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine gave them a convincing reminder that NATO was originally founded to counter Russian aggression in the Cold War. Unfortunately, no one could have anticipated that the U.S. would eventually have a president who saw Russia as a potential business partner for his own enrichment, or that he would see someone like Vladimir Putin as a role model. Nor did they expect he’d start supporting Putin’s efforts to gut NATO and break up the alliance.

As a mutual defense pact (an attack on one is an attack on all), it should be remembered that NATO members came to the aid of the U.S. after 911 and have provided support throughout America’s misadventures in the Middle East and the Global War on Terror. The U.S. and other members of NATO have trained together, shared intelligence, and have seen American weapons systems adopted by NATO members – a partnership that helped finance development of those systems by expanding the customer base.

NATO support for the U.S. had been a given – until Trump decided to attack Iran at Netanyahu’s instigation. That has proved to be a bridge too far, and Trump has been angered and humiliated that NATO isn’t rushing to bail him out of the debacle he created. So here we are: Trump is moving to cut back its forces it provides NATO in Europe. (NY Times gift link.)

The United States plans to significantly reduce the aircraft and warships that it makes available for NATO operations in Europe, according to two senior European officials, accelerating America’s effort to scale down the protection it has offered to European allies for eight decades.

The decision would limit NATO’s ability to launch long-range strikes and conduct surveillance. It was communicated to allies in early June in a written document, parts of which were reviewed by The New York Times. The European officials, who were briefed on the decision, spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak more freely about sensitive military plans.

The planned drawdowns include:

Reducing the number of F-16 and F-15E fighter jets from roughly 150 to 100

Reducing maritime reconnaissance aircraft from 26 to 15 and cutting all eight aerial refueling tanker jets previously available to Europe

Reallocating a missile-launching submarine and an aircraft carrier, along with several warships and scores of jets that join the carrier’s missions

Reallocating one of two groups of bombers previously assigned for Europe’s defense

The speed at which this will happen has left NATO members struggling to respond. It also comes at a time when Trump’s ill-begotten attack on Iran has put the global economy under stress that will only continue to grow the longer the Strait of Hormuz is closed and hostilities continue. And that’s on top of the tariff wars Trump has been waging.

NATO leaders have been wondering if the U.S. could be relied on under Trump to respond to an attack on them; this move greatly increases those doubts.

For some Europeans, the specific number of American assets assigned in Europe is less important than the question of whether Mr. Trump is prepared to deploy any of them in combat.

Anton Hofreiter, a German lawmaker, said: “NATO’s main problem is that, as long as Trump is president, there is no longer any faith that the U.S. would come to the Europeans’ aid in the event of an emergency.”

The drawdown comes at a particularly tense moment for Europe. In late May, a Russian drone hit an apartment block in Romania, the first such strike in a major urban area in NATO territory. Combined with other Russian drone intrusions into NATO airspace, it raised European fears that Russia might expand its aggression beyond its invasion of Ukraine.

It’s a certainty China, Taiwan, and every other country is watching what is happening and adjusting their expectations about the reliability of the U.S. as an ally accordingly. It’s hard to trust a country with a toddler for a leader who is planning to take his ball and go home because he’s losing and he hates the rules he refuses to follow.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. GOPus delendus est.

We’ll get straight to the point: The financial hardships that Daily Kos is facing this year are tough.

We continue to be paywall-free. We continue to be supported by our readers, not billionaires or corporations. But we need to bring in more revenue. We are leaning on our community more than ever to help make ends meet.

Power matters.