Trump: 'NATO Did Not Support Us — and It Will Not Support Us in the Future'; Stoltenberg Warns Alliance 'Not Written in Stone'

In his sharpest public statement on NATO to date, President Trump declared: 'NATO did not support us — and it will not support us in the future!' The statement — flagged by CNN in an April 15 fact-check of Trump's claims on NATO, taxes, and immigration — represented a historic escalation beyond the alliance's previous crisis level. Trump's framing moved from conditional ('why would we be there for them?') to a flat declarative rejection of future alliance solidarity. Former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, in a widely-circulated response, issued a stark warning: 'It's not a natural law that we will have NATO forever. It's not written in stone that NATO will exist for the next ten years.' Stoltenberg urged NATO allies and the US Senate to take Trump's threats seriously and resist normalizing alliance conditionality. The US Senate's bipartisan NATO Observer Group issued a joint statement by Co-Chairs opposing any US withdrawal from NATO and affirming the alliance's strategic value. CNN's fact-check noted Trump's claim that NATO 'wasn't there' during the Iran war misrepresented allied contributions: all 32 members had provided basing rights, logistics, or overflight access — the specific items Rutte had cited as concrete allied support.