LONDON — President Trump reportedly plans to attend the NATO summit in Brussels this July. If he does, he will do so as relations between the United States and its Western allies sit at a new low.
President Trump is on record as having called NATO “obsolete.” Last week, he left a G-7 summit in Canada early, signed but then refused to honor the joint communique with U.S. allies there, and then insulted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, has to keep working in this poisonous political climate, and she tells CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer that she’s been getting “an earful” from America’s allies.
The trick, says Hutchison, is to ignore the politics and just concentrate on NATO’s mission, to the extent possible.
“The allies and I are working very well together, keeping security as a separate issue,” she says.
Asked by Palmer if fellow ambassadors at the trans-Atlantic security alliance — America’s allies for more than seven decades — are eager to “speak their mind to anybody who they think is close to the White House and a high-profile representative of the United States,” Hutchinson notes that internal disputes are not novel, and says the diplomats remain, by and large, diplomatic.
“They’re very careful,” she says. “They’ve had bilateral disputes among different countries in the alliance, so they’re used to conflicts on the outside, but it hasn’t affected our ability to keep our focus on that security umbrella, because we’re doing big things and important things right now.”
She does not deny that many U.S. partners “disagree” with the Trump administration’s policies and actions, “and they vent sometimes.”
One of the things that Hutchinson says she hears about most, is President Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal signed by his predecessor, President Barack Obama.
President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), last month, to the consternation and private anger of allies including Germany and Britain.
“So you get an earful about that, do you?” Palmer asks Hutchinson.
“I do,” concedes the former Republican Senator from Texas. “But NATO’s main concern now is Russia. The U.S. has beefed-up its troop strength in NATO countries that lie next to Russia… like the Baltics and Poland.”
Hutchinson wouldn’t say where she sees the biggest threat from Russia, be it on the ground in Eastern Europe or in cyberspace, but she believes Russia is “probing to see where our weaknesses are, and that’s why we’re stiffening our resolve in Poland and the Baltics, and we’re stiffening our resolve on cyber and hybrid (warfare). We are going to stand firm against Russia.”
But last week, Palmer says President Trump once again muddied the waters by hinting that Russia was friend, not foe. He urged the other G-7 leaders to accept Vladimir Putin’s country back into the economic group, which, prior to Russia’s expulsion over the unilateral annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, had been the G-8.
“Russia should be in this meeting. Why are we having a meeting without Russia being in the meeting?” Mr. Trump said on his way to Quebec for the G-7 gathering last week. “I would recommend, and it’s up to them, but Russia should be in the meeting, it should be a part of it… they should let Russia come back in.”
Hutchinson told CBS News that she believes the decision on whether to welcome Russia back into the G-7 fold is for the G-7 leaders to make, as it is an “economic framework” separate and apart from the NATO alliance.
“I think we need to be firm with Russia,” she added. “I think we need to be very clear that it’s not business as usual with Russia, that they have violated all of the norms of behaviour of a country that we could trust. And so, I think that it’s very important that we stay strong.”
The White House has not confirmed that Mr. Trump will attend the NATO summit in July, but preparations are underway for him to visit Britain and Belgium next month.
