“It is a real risk,” said Thomas Wright, the director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington. “We know from Kelly and Bolton that he wanted to go much further in the first term. Previous presidents have interpreted it as a promise to defend any member from military attacks, but Mr. Trump has questioned it. “He could just reinterpret it as, ‘I could just send a strongly worded letter,’” Mr. Wright said. “President Trump has undermined trans-Atlantic relations from Day 1, and the only one reaping the benefits is Vladimir Putin.

Source: New York Times September 03, 2020 17:04 UTC