Nato Says Members Cannot Be Expelled After US–Spain Report

As Americans who lean left, we take pride in using our fellow citizens' hard-earned tax dollars to subsidize those in Europe. It reinforces our values of compassion and solidarity, making us feel good about fostering a sense of global community.

Yup. Lefties love spending OPM for their feels.

2 minutes ago, impulse said:

Lefties love spending OPM for their feels.

It’s the right thing to do.

It’s the right thing to do.

Not when you're over $36Trillion in debt.

Posts with derogatory nicknames, intentional misspellings, or personal remarks will be removed. Spell names correctly for all sides of the debate.

1 hour ago, impulse said:

Not when you're over $36Trillion in debt.

As though Trump and his supporters actually care about the debt.

As though Trump and his supporters actually care about the debt.

He sure has those NATO people in line:

NATO’s defence spending landscape in 2026 represents the most dramatic and consequential shift in the alliance’s 77-year history. For the first time since the 2% of GDP benchmark was codified at the 2014 Wales Summit, all 32 NATO member states met or exceeded that target in 2025 — a milestone that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte marked when presenting his Annual Report on March 26, 2026.

And they're talking about going to 5%. That should relieve the parasitic burden on the US taxpayers. I'd kind of like them to fix potholes on the Interstates...

https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/nato-budget-by-country-statistics/

1 minute ago, impulse said:

He sure has those NATO people in line:

NATO’s defence spending landscape in 2026 represents the most dramatic and consequential shift in the alliance’s 77-year history. For the first time since the 2% of GDP benchmark was codified at the 2014 Wales Summit, all 32 NATO member states met or exceeded that target in 2025 — a milestone that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte marked when presenting his Annual Report on March 26, 2026.

And they're talking about going to 5%. That should relieve the parasitic burden on the US taxpayers. I'd kind of like them to fix potholes on the Interstates...

https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/nato-budget-by-country-statistics/

I agree that Trump did a good thing by pushing NATO to spend more. And clearly, that entitled him to be award Greenland for his efforts. And yet those ungrateful Europeans begrudged him that.

I think that Putin had more effect on NATO members increasing their spending on defence than Trump.

You might just find that as Europe ramps up its defence capabilities all it would take is for another US president like Trump and it would be the US that gets kicked out of NATO by all member states withdrawing thereby disbanding NATO.

The US is becoming increasingly unstable and unreliable there is something catastrophically wrong with a country supposedly a democracy when one man can cause the amount of damage Trump has done and is doing not just to his own country but the world order.

Russia is the only real threat to Europe at the moment and I don't think that is going to always be the case, perhaps in the future it will be the US that becomes the main threat who knows.

Europe could simply have its own version of NATO without the US and tell the US to remove all its bases in Europe.

3 hours ago, impulse said:

He sure has those NATO people in line:

NATO’s defence spending landscape in 2026 represents the most dramatic and consequential shift in the alliance’s 77-year history. For the first time since the 2% of GDP benchmark was codified at the 2014 Wales Summit, all 32 NATO member states met or exceeded that target in 2025 — a milestone that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte marked when presenting his Annual Report on March 26, 2026.

And they're talking about going to 5%. That should relieve the parasitic burden on the US taxpayers. I'd kind of like them to fix potholes on the Interstates...

https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/nato-budget-by-country-statistics/

It won't relieve any tax burden as the US is not subsidizing NATO. Even if it ultimately leads to reduce the US military presence in Europe, the US will redeploy these assets elsewhere, at a similar cost (or even higher as infrastructures are provided for free to the US army in Europe). 😃

It won't relieve any tax burden as the US is not subsidizing NATO.

How can you post that with a straight face?

48 minutes ago, candide said:

It won't relieve any tax burden as the US is not subsidizing NATO. Even if it ultimately leads to reduce the US military presence in Europe, the US will redeploy these assets elsewhere, at a similar cost (or even higher as infrastructures are provided for free to the US army in Europe). 😃

16 minutes ago, impulse said:

How can you post that with a straight face?

I added the untruncated post which includes the rationale behind my claim!

Feel free to contradict it. 😂

I added the untruncated post which includes the rationale behind my claim!

Feel free to contradict it. 😂

I responded to the factual part that's in the history books and easily proven. The US taxpayer has been carrying NATO since its inception. That made sense when Europe was on its knees after the war. Not any more. Time for them to put on their big boy pants.

I couldn't care less about your forecast. Personally, I'd like to see a reduced US footprint in Europe, even if it's cheaper to station personnel there. That's a dumb reason.

14 minutes ago, impulse said:

I responded to the factual part that's in the history books and easily proven. The US taxpayer has been carrying NATO since its inception. That made sense when Europe was on its knees after the war. Not any more. Time for them to put on their big boy pants.

I couldn't care less about your forecast. Personally, I'd like to see a reduced US footprint in Europe, even if it's cheaper to station personnel there. That's a dumb reason.

14 minutes ago, impulse said:

I responded to the factual part that's in the history books and easily proven. The US taxpayer has been carrying NATO since its inception. That made sense when Europe was on its knees after the war. Not any more. Time for them to put on their big boy pants.

I couldn't care less about your forecast. Personally, I'd like to see a reduced US footprint in Europe, even if it's cheaper to station personnel there. That's a dumb reason.

14 minutes ago, impulse said:

I responded to the factual part that's in the history books and easily proven. The US taxpayer has been carrying NATO since its inception. That made sense when Europe was on its knees after the war. Not any more. Time for them to put on their big boy pants.

I couldn't care less about your forecast. Personally, I'd like to see a reduced US footprint in Europe, even if it's cheaper to station personnel there. That's a dumb reason.

You claimed that the tax burden would be reduced and you are unable to explain how! There's no evidence of the US decreasing its defense budget because other NATO countries increasing their defense budget.

Poor Donnie! He can't get his ass chapped if nobody's doing the licking! Think of the diaper rash!

Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson issued the following statement to Reuters: “As President Trump has said, despite everything that the United States has done for our NATO allies, they were not there for us.”

The statement left Miles Taylor, a former Homeland Security senior official under both the Trump and Bush administrations, bewildered.

“This is a remarkably ignorant statement. NATO’s founding logic is collective defense – the bedrock guarantee that an attack on one is an attack on all,” Taylor wrote on his Substack, Defiance.

“What the Trump administration is now proposing, in effect, is a conditional inversion of that principle: we will support you… but only if you supported us first… in a war of our choosing… on the terms we set… and on which you had no say. In my view, that’s a bit closer to the logic of a protection racket than an actual alliance.”

“Donald Trump is making the implosion of NATO a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Taylor wrote. “He’s already shown that Washington is worse than a fickle anchor of the alliance. It’s a vindictive one, doing deep damage to the compact from the inside.”

Miles Taylor warns of NATO damage after Pentagon stance revealed

9 hours ago, impulse said:

He sure has those NATO people in line:

NATO’s defence spending landscape in 2026 represents the most dramatic and consequential shift in the alliance’s 77-year history. For the first time since the 2% of GDP benchmark was codified at the 2014 Wales Summit, all 32 NATO member states met or exceeded that target in 2025 — a milestone that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte marked when presenting his Annual Report on March 26, 2026.

And they're talking about going to 5%. That should relieve the parasitic burden on the US taxpayers. I'd kind of like them to fix potholes on the Interstates...

https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/nato-budget-by-country-statistics/

The percentages are built completely different. The US is enriching it's defence industry, Europe should spend locally, but the US percentage is way overdone.

The percentages are built completely different. The US is enriching it's defence industry, Europe should spend locally, but the US percentage is way overdone.

You're preaching to the choir on that one. I remember fondly listening to Eisenhower's famous speech on his way out warning of the dangers of the Military Industrial Complex. And Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket". Both of them before my time, but still timely warnings about the corrupt Uni-Party that our government has become.

But here's the deal. If I give you 5,000 Chevy trucks, I am propping up GM, true. But it's still coming out of my pocket- money I could be spending on potholes along Eisenhower's Interstates.

26 minutes ago, impulse said:

You're preaching to the choir on that one. I remember fondly listening to Eisenhower's famous speech on his way out warning of the dangers of the Military Industrial Complex. And Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket". Both of them before my time, but still timely warnings about the corrupt Uni-Party that our government has become.

But here's the deal. If I give you 5,000 Chevy trucks, I am propping up GM, true. But it's still coming out of my pocket- money I could be spending on potholes along Eisenhower's Interstates.

It's funny you should bring up Eisenhower, he was POTUS when the CIA & MI6 backed 1953 Iranian coup d'état which overthrew Iran's prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, who had nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.

The coup reinstated Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as an absolute monarch and significantly increased the level of influence of the United States over Iran.

In 1963, the Shah had launched the White Revolution, a top-down modernization and land reform program that alienated many sectors of society, especially the clergy. Khomeini emerged as a vocal critic and was exiled in 1964. However, as ideological tensions persisted between Pahlavi and Khomeini, anti-government demonstrations began in October 1977, developing into a campaign of civil resistance that included communists, socialists, and Islamists. Mass protests were underway. A key turning point occurred in August 1978, when the Cinema Rex fire by Islamic militants killed around 400 people. However a large portion of the public believed it was a false flag operation by SAVAK, the Shah's secret police, to discredit the opposition and justify a crackdown, fuelling nationwide outrage and mobilization. By the end of 1978, the revolution had become a broad-based uprising that paralyzed the country for the remainder of that year.

On 16 January 1979, Pahlavi left Iran for exile, leaving his duties to Iran's Regency Council and Shapour Bakhtiar, the opposition-based prime minister. On 1 February 1979, Khomeini returned, following an invitation by the government; several million greeted him as he landed in Tehran. By 11 February, the monarchy was brought down and Khomeini assumed leadership while guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed Pahlavi loyalists in armed combat. Following the March 1979 Islamic Republic referendum, in which 98% approved the shift to an Islamic republic, the new government began drafting the present-day constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran; Khomeini emerged as the supreme leader of Iran in December 1979.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution

9 hours ago, Bannoi said:

I think that Putin had more effect on NATO members increasing their spending on defence than Trump.

You might just find that as Europe ramps up its defence capabilities all it would take is for another US president like Trump and it would be the US that gets kicked out of NATO by all member states withdrawing thereby disbanding NATO.

The US is becoming increasingly unstable and unreliable there is something catastrophically wrong with a country supposedly a democracy when one man can cause the amount of damage Trump has done and is doing not just to his own country but the world order.

Russia is the only real threat to Europe at the moment and I don't think that is going to always be the case, perhaps in the future it will be the US that becomes the main threat who knows.

Europe could simply have its own version of NATO without the US and tell the US to remove all its bases in Europe.

Both, Europe realized they can not Trust USA!