Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) reintroduced a bill on Wednesday that would constrain any U.S. president from ever withdrawing from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance.
The United States has been a part of NATO since its inception, with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington D.C. on April 4, 1949.
Mr. Kaine and Mr. Rubio have repeatedly introduced this resolution over the years. Their latest attempt comes as members of the NATO alliance are meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Both senators serve on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. Mr. Kaine also serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee and Mr. Rubio is the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Mr. Kaine emphasized his support for NATO amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, a country that borders the eastern edge of NATO allied territories.
“Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine and Finland’s accession and Sweden’s pending accession into NATO all underscore the same thing: NATO is stronger than ever,” the Democratic Virginia senator said on Wednesday. “I’m proud to introduce this bipartisan bill to reaffirm the United States’ commitment to NATO and ensure any U.S. President can’t unilaterally decide to leave the alliance without congressional approval.”
Trump’s NATO Skepticism Inspired Resolutions
During his time in office, former President Donald Trump accused other NATO member nations of failing to meet their defense spending commitments to the alliance and said he'd threaten to leave the alliance if other members didn’t contribute more.Mr. Kaine joined Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), as well as then-Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2018 in their first attempt to pass the resolution maintaining U.S. involvement in NATO. Mr. Kaine cited Mr. Trump’s NATO remarks as part of his decision to support the resolution at the time.
A bipartisan group of senators again introduced the NATO commitment resolution in January of 2019.
Mr. Trump is once again running to become president and is currently leading the field of Republican primary contenders.
Thus far in his 2024 run, Mr. Trump has made calls for a peace resolution to the war between Russia and Ukraine, in contrast to NATO’s current efforts to bolster the Ukrainian side with new weapons systems.