NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte will be in Washington this week, risking the wrath of President Trump, who hates the transatlantic military alliance because it “wasn’t there when we needed them” for Iran. Trump has more than once floated the idea of bailing on NATO. Don’t expect it to happen, Pimco Head of Public Policy Libby Cantrill told clients recently.
What most people forget is that in 2024 Congress passed a law banning the president from unilaterally quitting NATO without a 60-vote Senate majority or a change in the law. (The person least likely to say this out loud is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who led the effort in the Senate at the time.) NATO remains popular in Congress. Cantrill said in an email: “While President Trump likes to refer to NATO as a ‘paper tiger,’ arguably, the paper tiger is the threat that the U.S. will withdraw from NATO.”
Congress passes war powers measure for first time, breaking with Trump over Iran - BBC
Accounting for the war: $200 billion burned so far
On Monday, the Department of Defense told senators it needed an additional $80 billion to cover the cost of the U.S. war against Iran, just weeks after warning that the military could potentially run out of money should Congress not pass a new spending bill, Fortune’s Jacqueline Munis reports. But what is the total bill so far?
