U.S. President Donald Trump is considering leaving the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), he told British newspaper the Telegraph on Wednesday.
Trump called the 77-year-old U.S.-led military alliance a “paper tiger” and said Russian President Vladimir Putin “knows that too,” in an interview with the Telegraph.
Trump, who has been frustrated by U.S. allies refusing to get involved in the U.S. war on Iran and the subsequent efforts to force Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to full international traffic, was asked in the interview if he would reconsider ending U.S. membership in the alliance.
The Strait of Hormuz accounts for one-third of the global oil trade and has been closed for weeks, with Iran blockading the key waterway as it exchanges strikes with the U.S. and Israel.
Trump said he was frustrated with allies “not being there” to help the U.S.
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“Beyond not being there, it was actually hard to believe. And I didn’t do a big sale. I just said, ‘Hey,’ you know, I didn’t insist too much. I just think it should be automatic,” he said.
Trump’s explanations for why the U.S. launched the attacks on Iran have shifted repeatedly over recent weeks since the war began on Feb. 28.
Earlier this month, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said NATO had not received a formal request from Washington for member countries to formally launch efforts to secure the Strait of Hormuz.
“To our knowledge, a request has not been made to NATO for the type of assistance that is being requested and Canada, as a founding member of NATO, continues to support the principles of collective defence,” she said.
In his Telegraph interview, Trump said the U.S. has “been there” to support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.
“We’ve been there automatically, including Ukraine. Ukraine wasn’t our problem. It was a test, and we were there for them, and we would always have been there for them. They weren’t there for us,” he said.
Trump has long criticized NATO members for not increasing their defence spending. In June 2025, Canada joined other NATO countries in pledging five per cent of its budget on defence spending by 2035.
Last week, NATO confirmed that Canada has hit its target of spending two per cent of its GDP on national defence by March of this year.
Trump on Wednesday also claimed that Iran’s president wanted a ceasefire ahead of his speech to the American people set for later this evening.
Trump made the claim on his Truth Social website. Iran had no immediate response to Trump’s post.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in an interview with Al Jazeera aired late Tuesday, signalled Tehran’s willingness to keep fighting.
“You cannot speak to the people of Iran in the language of threats and deadlines,” he said. “We do not set any deadline for defending ourselves.”
— with files from The Associated Press.
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