Fear: Trump in the White House(28)

As a private citizen Mattis had blasted Trump’s anti-NATO ideas as “kooky.” Much of the foreign policy establishment as well as European allies had been unnerved by Trump’s comments.

Priebus arranged a 6:30 p.m. dinner for Wednesday, February 8, in the Red Room of the residence so Trump could hear arguments from Mattis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph Dunford and several others. He also invited a pillar of the Washington Republican establishment, C. Boyden Gray. Gray, 73, had most recently been the U.S. ambassador to the European Union for two years in the administration of President George W. Bush. He had been legal consigliere to George H. W. Bush during the eight years Bush had been vice president and four years as president.

As they sat down to dinner, Trump wanted to gossip about the news of the day. Senator John McCain, displaying his maverick credentials, had publicly criticized the U.S. military raid in Yemen.

Trump lashed out, suggesting that McCain had taken the coward’s way out of Vietnam as a prisoner of war. He said that as a Navy pilot during the Vietnam War McCain, whose father was Admiral John McCain, the Pacific commander, had been offered and taken early release, leaving other POWs behind.

“No, Mr. President,” Mattis said quickly, “I think you’ve got it reversed.” McCain had turned down early release and been brutally tortured and held five years in the Hanoi Hilton.

“Oh, okay,” Trump said.

Gray, who had served five years in the Marine Corps, was struck that the secretary corrected the president directly, and that Trump, known to bristle when challenged, would be so accepting.

It was not until the dessert course that Priebus finally said, “We’ve really got to deal with the NATO issue.”

Retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, the National Security Council chief of staff, was representing the NSC. A combat veteran of Vietnam with Silver and Bronze Stars and the first Gulf War, Kellogg launched into a critique. Echoing some of Trump’s negative language, he said NATO was “obsolete” and set up after World War II when the United States was richer and facing an aggressive Soviet Union. Now, the cost to the United States was unfair and out of proportion with European allies. The United States was being used.

“Those wouldn’t be my views, Mr. President,” said General Joseph Dunford.

“Oh, really?” Trump interjected. “What would your views be?”

Dunford, the top military man, offered a spirited defense. It’s an alliance that shouldn’t be disbanded, and it would be hard to put it back together, he said. With Eastern European nations such as Poland feeling threatened by Putin’s invasions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, it was important to maintain solidarity and unity. “It’s terribly important to keep Europe united politically, strategically and economically.” He agreed that the member nations should meet their commitment to 2 percent of their annual GDP.

I think the Germans will make good on their commitment to pay 2 percent of GDP, and they are the most important, Mattis added.

Jared Kushner jumped in. “As a percentage of our own defense budget the shortfall is really small,” he said. “Pennies on the dollar.”

Priebus cautioned that the 2 percent was not an obligation but a recent agreement that all the NATO countries would strive to get there by 2024. This was not a payment to NATO but a commitment to defense spending.

“But it is a political problem when your allies don’t pay their fair share,” Trump said. He would make his case on fairness, and he kept returning to that theme. Why should the United States pay for the European defense?

Priebus realized that the president didn’t care that it was a goal, not an obligation. Trump cared that he could sell it and try to win over public opinion.

“I don’t care if it’s a goal or not,” Trump finally said. “It’s what they should do.”

Boyden Gray pointed out that Europe had lots of economic problems. “Not that we don’t, but theirs are worse.” The countries need to grow their economies more. “Part of the reason they don’t pay is because they’re not growing fast enough.”

“Are you saying they can’t pay?” Trump asked.

“No,” Gray said. But the United States should help Europe with their anemic economic growth rate. European business culture largely avoided taking risks.

“Which is going to be the next country to drop out?” Trump asked. Under the Brexit referendum, approved by British voters, Great Britain had to leave the European Union.

“I don’t think there will be another country to drop out,” Gray replied.

Trump said he agreed.

“If you didn’t have NATO, you would have to invent it,” Mattis said. “There’s no way Russia could win a war if they took on NATO.”

By the end of the dinner, Trump seemed to be persuaded. “You can have your NATO,” he told Mattis. The administration would support the alliance, “but you become the rent collector.”

Mattis laughed. And then he nodded.

In his speech in Munich on February 15, Secretary Mattis found middle ground. “America will meet its responsibilities,” he said, but would “moderate” its commitment if the other NATO countries did not meet theirs. Nonetheless he said the alliance was a “fundamental bedrock” of U.S. policy.

At a news conference with the NATO secretary general two months later, Trump said, “I said it was obsolete. It is no longer obsolete.”