Trump Revives NATO Exit Threat After Allies Spurn Iran War Support

Alliances fray when strategic interests diverge: Charles de Gaulle yanked France from NATO’s integrated command in 1966, and in March 2003 Paris, Berlin and Ankara blocked U.S. Iraq-war overflights. Trump’s 2026 ultimatum sits in that lineage but pairs legal ambiguity (a 2023 law vs. past presidential treaty exits) with a wider post-Cold-War trend—the U.S. questioning the cost of underwriting Europe’s security while Europeans debate “strategic autonomy.” Energy chokepoints like Hormuz have triggered global realignments before—the 1973 oil embargo rewired economic power—and control of the strait now becomes the lever Trump uses against both Tehran and Brussels. Whether he follows through or not, the mere threat accelerates European defence integration and signals a possible end to the 1949 U.S. security guarantee that underpinned the 20th-century liberal order; on a 100-year arc, this could mark the moment the Atlantic alliance shifted from U.S.-led hegemon to multipolar bargain—or simply another bluff that, like Reagan’s 1986 Libya overflight dispute, is patched up once the crisis passes.