Once again, Musk ventures outside his role with statements that complicate matters for Trump.
Should the US Leave NATO and the UN?
Let’s see what Trump has to say. The WSJ has a good synopsis in Trump’s Embrace of Russia Rocks NATO Alliance
Trump staked out a position that many European allies saw as siding with Russia’s autocratic leader, Vladimir Putin, by dismissing the security concerns of a friendly country in need of Western help. He said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was losing the war and had “no cards.”
NATO is based on the idea that the U.S. would use its military might, including its arsenal of nuclear weapons, to come to the defense of any ally that is attacked. That bedrock assumption has now been called into question.
“I worry that we may be in the last days of NATO,” said retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis, who served as NATO’s supreme allied commander. He said the trans-Atlantic alliance “may not be about to collapse, but I can sure hear it creaking louder than at any time in my long career in the military.”
Trump on Sunday wrote on his Truth Social platform: “We should spend less time worrying about Putin, and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our Country—So that we don’t end up like Europe!” Last week, he said the European Union “was formed in order to screw the United States.”
The White House, in response to a question Monday about Trump’s faith in NATO, pointed to his comments Thursday at a news conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Asked there if he supports NATO’s mutual-defense clause, Article 5 of its founding treaty, Trump said, “I support it.”
The strength of Trump’s support for NATO has varied over time and by area of focus. On Friday, with Zelensky, he said, “we’re committed to NATO” and praised alliance member Poland, which spends heavily on defense. He was less enthusiastic in his support for the high-spending Baltic states, which are also in NATO.
“We want to preserve the trans-Atlantic partnership and our joint strength,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Saturday. “But yesterday showed once again that we Europeans must not be naive,” she said, referring to events Friday at the White House. “We must take responsibility for our own interests, our own values and our own security, for the sake of our people in Europe.”
Questions Two and Three
Do you agree with this statement by Trump: “We should spend less time worrying about Putin, and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our Country—So that we don’t end up like Europe!”
I do, in general, although I would phrase it quite a bit differently.
How about: “We’re committed to NATO”
Trump’s statements are not contradictory. He is more concerned over immigration than Putin. I believe that is reasonable, with the delivery debatable.
And he supports NATO but does not believe the EU is carrying its weight.
Stirring the Pot
Musk stirred the pot, with support for leaving NATO and the UN.
Perhaps you agree, but that is not what Trump has stated, and it’s a headache Trump doesn’t need.
Returning to the WSJ
The current crisis flips Europe’s longstanding security dilemma on its head. For years, U.S. strategists fretted over whether they could fend off hostility from Moscow if Europe didn’t pull its weight militarily. Now it is Europeans who are in a sweat, wondering if they can defend against Russia without the U.S.
“Europeans are wise to be concerned and to build up their own military industry and capabilities,” said Rose Gottemoeller, a former NATO deputy secretary-general and chief U.S. arms negotiator with Russia.
“If you expect Trump will deal transactionally with Europe or disengage—or both—you have to prepare for both,” said Giuseppe Spatafora, a former NATO planner and now a research analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies, the bloc’s external-policy think tank.
“How you make up for the U.S. commitment is a political question, and one that must be discussed and acted upon now,” said Spatafora.
Whether planned or not, that is the reaction that Trump wants from Europe.
But did Musk help or hurt that effort?
What About the UN?
“America provides way too much funding to the UN and associated entities,” said Musk on February 10.
That was in response to Bill Ackman who stated “The more I learn about the @UN, one of the largest NGOs, the more I think our support for the UN deserves careful scrutiny. And as @realDonaldTrump would notice, it occupies great waterfront real estate in NYC.”
Last fiscal year, Congress approved $1.54 billion for the UN’s Core Budget. But how much are we really spending?
The Council on Foreign Relations addresses the question Funding the United Nations: How Much Does the U.S. Pay?
The United States today remains the largest donor to the United Nations. It contributed close to $13 billion in 2023, accounting for more than a quarter of funding for the body’s collective budget. Following President Donald Trump’s efforts to cut funding during his first term, President Joe Biden asserted the United Nations’ importance to U.S. foreign policy by restoring funding to several agencies that was paused by Trump. At the outset of his second term, however, Trump is again pursuing a reevaluation of the United States’ engagement with the United Nations, advocating for a reassessment of U.S. contributions due to what he says is the body’s inefficiencies and biases.
These mandatory contributions help fund the United Nations’ regular budget, which covers the body’s administrative costs and core activities such as special political missions, as well as peacekeeping operations. In 2024, the United Nations assessed the United States’ share of the regular budget at 22 percent and its share of the peacekeeping budget at 27 percent. However, the U.S. Congress caps contributions to the peacekeeping budget at 25 percent—a limit set in 1995 due to concerns the U.S. assessment was too high—leaving the United States in arrears.
The U.S. government contributed almost $13 billion to the United Nations in fiscal year 2023 (FY 2023), the most recent year for which complete data is available. Approximately 24 percent of this total was assessed, 75 percent was voluntary, and the rest was revenue from other activities, meaning money from services and investments.
[In his first administration] Trump also tried to cut aid to UN peacekeeping efforts by almost half a billion dollars. While Congress largely rejected the proposed cuts, it agreed in 2017 to enforce a mandated cap on U.S. contributions to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UN-DPO) that had been waived since 2001.
For many agencies, especially those that depend on voluntary funding, cuts in U.S. contributions can be painful. For example, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, relied on the United States for about one-third of its budget until the Trump administration halted contributions in 2018. The move led the agency to lay off staff and slash its health, education, and food assistance.
After his inauguration in 2021, Biden began refunding some of the agencies that saw cuts under Trump. Biden halted the planned U.S. exit from the WHO, with contributions to the agency continuing uninterrupted. The administration also restarted funding for UNFPA, providing nearly $100 million to the agency in 2021. The funding marked a return to the core-funding levels of the Barack Obama administration. While the Biden administration initially resumed funding for UNRWA, it again paused funding in 2024 following Israeli allegations that twelve UNRWA employees participated in the October 7 attacks by Hamas.
In FY 2024, as it did the previous year, Congress fully funded its assessed contribution for most UN entities
What has a second Trump administration done?
In the weeks following his inauguration, Trump issued an executive order calling for a general review of all U.S. funding to the United Nations. As part of the order, the administration announced it will not resume funding for UNRWA. (Congress maintains a formal suspension [PDF] on all U.S. contributions to UNRWA until March 2025.)
Experts say the pause on UNRWA funding will negatively affect on-the-ground operations for the more than two million people living in the heavily damaged Gaza Strip who rely on UN aid, potentially worsening the region’s humanitarian crisis.
Has the United States sought to cut UN funding before?
Past U.S. presidents and lawmakers have sought to decrease payments to the United Nations. In the late 1990s, for example, Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) led an effort to force reforms at the United Nations by withholding U.S. contributions. The United States nearly lost its vote at the General Assembly as millions of dollars in unpaid assessments accrued. The instability ended in 2001 with a compromise between Congress and the United Nations. The deal, struck by Helms and Biden—then a senator representing Delaware—reduced the U.S. share of the UN administrative budget from 25 percent to 22 percent.
Scalpel or Sledgehammer?
Do I think the US wastes too much on the UN? Yes, we have already proven that with some DOGE analysis.
However, It’s not quite as simple as get out of NATO and UN completely that Musk champions.
For starters, it’s clear that Trump says he does not want to end NATO but rather wants the EU to pay its fair share.
And although I am pretty much an isolationist in these matters, total isolationism is likely a mistake. The risk in creating a UN vacuum is that China steps in to fill the void and gains mineral rights in key places.
A scalpel may be better than a sledge hammer. After all, the total savings dumping all UN spending would only be $13 billion and Congress would have to go along.
But my opinion doesn’t matter. The fact is Musk injected himself in the spotlight with a position more extreme than Trump, that Trump now has to explain.
Getting out of NATO is up to Congress, certainly not Musk , and not even Trump. The same applies to a total cutoff of UN funding.
Look at the bickering over $13 billion out of a total budget of $6.8 trillion for Fiscal Year 2024.
DOGE fails to impress with a lot of bravado that does not add up to much. Meanwhile, Trump has his hands full with tariffs, a plight of his own making.
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Trump already has his hands full and does not need another Musk-related issue that he has to deal with.