Published November 9, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump could pull the United States out of NATO without the authority of Congress despite legislation passed to prevent him from doing so, Politico reports.
Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sponsored a bill that would require congressional approval for the president to withdraw the U.S. from NATO, a measure that was included in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. However, legal experts told Politico that Trump could use presidential authority over foreign policy to ignore that requirement.
Curtis Bradley, the University of Chicago Law School’s Allen M. Singer distinguished service professor, told Politico that if Trump were to declare the U.S. no longer a part of NATO, it’s unclear if Congress has the legal standing to file a lawsuit.
“For the issue to be litigated, there would need to be someone with standing to sue,” Bradley said. “The only party I can think of who might have standing would be Congress itself, but it is not clear that the Republicans in Congress (who will at least control the Senate) would support such a suit.”
The Brookings Institution’s Scott Anderson, senior editor of Lawfare, told the news outlet that the law on the issue is “not airtight,” adding, “This is not open and shut, this is about Congress telling you you can’t do this, and if you ignore Congress, you’re going to have to fight us in the courts over it.”
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SOURCE: www.newsmax.com
RELATED: The law is ‘not airtight’: Trump may have a way out of NATO
The guardrail against the next president leaving the alliance is shakier than you think.
If Donald Trump as president simply declared he was pulling out of the alliance, it’s unclear whether Congress would have the legal standing to sue him for ignoring the law, one expert said. | Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images
Published November 9, 2024
In the wake of NATO-skeptic President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, backers of the alliance are taking comfort in a year-old U.S. law that says he can’t withdraw unless Congress approves.
But Trump may have a way around it — and it’s a method he has used before.
In 2023, Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) authored legislation requiring that any presidential decision to exit NATO must have either two-thirds Senate approval or be authorized through an act of Congress. Lawmakers passed the measure as part of the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law.
Legal experts warn that Trump could try to sidestep Congress’s NATO guardrail, citing presidential authority over foreign policy — an approach he used before to bypass congressional restrictions on treaty withdrawal.
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SOURCE: www.politico.com
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