Take him seriously – but don’t take him literally” was the advice offered to the world by Anthony Scaramucci, who was once – comically briefly – Donald Trump’s director of communications. It seems as good a way as any to consider the erratic president’s threat to pull the US out of Nato.
But it is not entirely comforting, because, even if this latest alarming proposal doesn’t come to fruition, it implies a continuing and escalating hostility towards what used to be America’s closest (and mostly reliable) allies on the other side of the Atlantic. Even if the US president was speaking in a moment of stress and frustration, his words are indeed serious.
