Following the reluctance of many traditional American allies to become involved in the war against Iran, Donald Trump is once again threatening to withdraw the US from Nato. “They haven’t been friends when we needed them,” he said in an interview with Reuters on April 1. “We’ve never asked them for much … it’s a one-way street.”
To be sure, membership in Nato does impose some costs on the US. Washington pays roughly US$750 million (£568 million) per year in direct costs to keep the organisation running, and a further US$4 billion or so towards the European Deterrence Initiative. This initiative rotates some US forces in and out of Europe to deter Russian aggression.
There are also other US forces stationed permanently in Germany and various other European countries, including the UK and Italy. The cost to the US of keeping these forces where they are is comparable to the cost of basing them at home.
