Trump’s NATO threats are ‘deadly serious,’ Bolton says. What about NORAD?

Donald Trump’s recent threats that NATO members who miss their spending targets — like Canada — won’t be protected by the United States show he’s “serious” about ultimately withdrawing the U.S. from the military alliance, Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton says.

That “simple view” of America’s relationships with its allies may likely inform Trump’s approach to U.S.-Canada relations and strategic partnerships between the two countries, Bolton says — including NORAD — if Trump returns to the White House.

“I think he would talk as he does when he refers to the European Union, or about these ‘horrible trade deals’ that Canada has negotiated with the United States,” Bolton said in an interview with Mercedes Stephenson that aired Sunday on The West Block, when asked if Trump might withdraw from NORAD.

“He thinks all of our friends take advantage of us … but that’s not a reason to throw over the entire alliance system.”

Bolton was Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019, ultimately leaving the administration amid mounting disagreements with Trump. He wrote in his memoir that during a 2018 NATO leaders summit, Trump nearly withdrew the U.S. from NATO entirely, but ultimately backed down.

“Fortunately, it didn’t happen through the efforts of a lot of people who were there, trying their best to prevent it, and Trump’s attention turned elsewhere,” Bolton said. “But (his latest remarks show) the idea is still on his mind.

“He’s deadly serious.”

Trump has often lamented that NATO members aren’t pulling their weight by not meeting the alliance’s 2014 pledge of spending at least two per cent of GDP on defence, which Canada has fallen well short of for years. Trump has equated that non-binding