President Donald Trump on Thursday said the United States should have considered testing NATO by forcing member countries to respond to America’s southern border crisis.
Trump speculated in a post on Truth Social that the U.S. could have invoked Article 5 — the alliance’s collective defense clause that deems an attack on one member as an attack on all — thereby putting NATO ‘to the test.’
‘Maybe we should have put NATO to the test: Invoked Article 5, and forced NATO to come here and protect our Southern Border from further Invasions of Illegal Immigrants, thus freeing up large numbers of Border Patrol Agents for other tasks,’ he wrote.
The president’s comments came after he has recently questioned NATO’s commitment to aiding the U.S.
‘We will always be there for NATO, even if they won’t be there for us,’ the president wrote on social media earlier this month.
After meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Trump announced that he had the ‘framework of a future deal regarding Greenland.’
Trump wrote on Truth Social that if finalized, the deal ‘will be a great one for the United States of America, and all NATO Nations.’
Following the meeting, Trump said he would scrap a plan to impose tariffs on a group of NATO members who sent troops to Greenland amid the president’s efforts to acquire the island. Trump had asserted that those countries would be subjected to a 10% tariff on all goods beginning Feb. 1.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News this week, Rutte said Trump was ‘totally right’ about needing to shore up security in the Arctic region, noting that the chance of Russia or China becoming a threat in that region was increasing.
Rutte applauded Trump’s leadership in getting NATO countries to pay more money for the alliance’s defenses.
‘I would argue tonight with you on this program he was the one who brought a whole of Europe and Canada up to this famous 5%,’ Rutte said, ‘which is crucial for us to equalize our spending, but also protect ourselves. And this is the framework which you see in his post that we will work on.’
NATO members were previously spending 2% of GDP on defense, but have now agreed to spend 5% of GDP on defense and national security infrastructure.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.