Trump's Pentagon Chief Has Dire Warning for NATO

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said during a Tuesday interview that Donald Trump would likely withdraw the United States from NATO if he's reelected, resulting in the alliance's "collapse."

Esper, who served as the Pentagon chief during Trump's administration from 2019 to 2020, made the comments during an appearance on MSNBC.

Although he served under Trump, Esper has made headlines for claims he made about the former president in his 2022 book, A Sacred Oath. The U.S. Army veteran wrote he was concerned Trump might use the military to stay in power following the results of the 2020 presidential election. Esper also claimed Trump once asked advisers during a meeting whether troops could shoot racial injustice protesters outside the White House.

During the Wednesday interview, Esper said that if Trump wins the 2024 election, "one of the first things that would happen is he would withdraw support for Ukraine."

Newsweek reached out to a representative for Trump on Thursday via email for comment.

"And of course if that were to happen, I think the whole effort to support Ukraine in its war against Russia would eventually crumble," Esper said. "Because the United States is kind of like the big block in the Jenga tower—you pull us out and everything else collapses."

Esper continued by saying he thinks Trump's "next move" would be to pull the U.S. out of NATO, or at least remove American soldiers from NATO countries.

"Eventually, that could cause the collapse of the alliance. And that's exactly what [Russian President] Vladimir Putin would love to see, right? Is the collapse of NATO," he said.

Esper continued by saying that Trump would also likely pull American troops out of South Korea, Japan and "other countries who are allied with us."

"So look, it's quite disconcerting from a national security standpoint," he said.

Esper isn't the first former Trump official to think he would withdraw the U.S. from NATO. John Bolton, who served as Trump's national security adviser, told NewsNation in August that Trump would "almost certainly withdraw from NATO" in a second term.

During his time in office, Trump was also openly critical of NATO and at one point called on members to increase their defense spending.

"Many countries in NATO, which we are expected to defend, are not only short of their current commitment of 2% (which is low), but are also delinquent for many years in payments that have not been made. Will they reimburse the U.S.?" Trump wrote on Twitter (now known as X) in 2018.