00:00Donald Trump is not always praising other people, but this one is an exception.
00:19And as NATO boss Mark Ruta is visiting Trump today.
00:24Your reporter started to wonder, could US president say one day bye-bye to NATO?
00:30Let's look at what we have actually in the basket.
00:34Under the NATO treaty, the exit process seems simple.
00:38A country submits a formal notice, and one year later, they are out.
00:42But under US domestic law, it is a completely different story.
00:46In 2023, legislation was passed to block any president from quitting all by themselves.
00:52And to legally withdraw, Trump would need a two-third supermajority in the Senate,
00:57or a specific act of Congress.
00:59And although no one has ever fully left the alliance, Paris came close.
01:04In 1960s, President Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of NATO's military command.
01:09US troops were ordered to leave French soil,
01:12and the alliance had to pack up its headquarters and move from Paris to Brussels.
01:16And it took more than four decades for France to rejoin the military command in 2009.
01:23However, even if Trump cannot easily withdraw,
01:26experts warn he could still follow a similar path and hollow out US participation.
01:31And he could severely slash funding, withdraw key personnel,
01:35or simply refuse to honor the mutual defense pledge.
01:39And if Washington stays in the alliance in name only, calling it
01:43This is NATO, and I've always said NATO's a paper tiger.
01:47And I've always said we help NATO, but they'll never help us.
01:51One could say NATO is already weakened from within,
01:54having lost the one thing that matters the most – its credibility.
01:58One could say NATO is already weakened from within,
01:58and it's not the only one thing that matters the most – its ability.
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