Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky announced on Tuesday that he had introduced a measure to remove the U.S. from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, arguing that the decades-old alliance is obsolete, has been costly for American taxpayers and puts the nation at risk of engagement in foreign wars.
‘NATO is a Cold War relic. The United States should withdraw from NATO and use that money to defend our country, not socialist countries. Today, I introduced HR 6508 to end our NATO membership,’ Massie said in a post on X.
GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida shared Massie’s post and wrote, ‘Co-sponsoring this.’
‘NATO was created to counter the Soviet Union, which collapsed over thirty years ago. Since then, U.S. participation has cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and continues to risk U.S. involvement in foreign wars. Our Constitution did not authorize permanent foreign entanglements, something our Founding Fathers explicitly warned us against. America should not be the world’s security blanket—especially when wealthy countries refuse to pay for their own defense,’ Massie said, according to a press release.
Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah introduced the ‘Not a Trusted Organization Act,’ or ‘NATO Act’ in the Senate earlier this year — Massie is now fielding companion legislation in the House.
Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty stipulates that ‘After the Treaty has been in force for twenty years, any Party may cease to be a Party one year after its notice of denunciation has been given to the Government of the United States of America, which will inform the Governments of the other Parties of the deposit of each notice of denunciation.’
The proposal advanced by Lee and Massie would use this escape hatch to extract the U.S. from the longstanding NATO alliance.
‘Consistent with Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty, done at Washington April 4, 1949, not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the President shall give notice of denunciation of the North Atlantic Treaty for purposes of withdrawing the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,’ the proposal declares.
‘No funds authorized to be appropriated, appropriated, or otherwise made available by any Act may be used to fund, directly or indirectly, United States contributions to the common-funded budgets of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, including the civil budget, the military budget, or the Security Investment Program,’ the text of the measure stipulates.