U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview with the British newspaper The Telegraph that he does not rule out withdrawing his country from NATO, again defining the organization as a "paper tiger." "I was never excited about NATO," he said. "We were automatically in there, including the war in Ukraine. But they were not there for us." After the start of the war with Iran, NATO members disappointed Trump: "They not only weren't there, which was actually hard to believe. Some, like Spain, denied the use of their bases and even their airspace; others, like the United Kingdom, allowed the use of some bases after an initial refusal, but conditioned only on defensive actions." Trump added: "I always knew it was a paper tiger, and Putin knows it, by the way." British Prime Minister Keir Starmer reacted to Trump's words, stating that NATO remains "the most effective military alliance the world has ever seen," and emphasized that he will continue to defend British interests "despite the noise."
