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Above foreign affairs Republican Senator Jim Risch predicted that the United States would not leave NATO under the Trump administration and instead promised to work with the new president to strengthen it.
Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, who heads the powerful Foreign Relations Committee under the new Republican majority, said his No. 1 priority is “putting Trump’s team in its place.” He said he is “cautiously optimistic” that they will be able to get Marco Rubio, Trump’s nominee for office. Secretary of State, confirmed on opening day.
Speaking to Fox News Digital a day after meeting with Trump, the president said he believes Trump’s national security apparatus will be less frantic this time.
“Anyone you talk to will tell you it’s really different this time,” he said. “It’s going to be a lot better.”
He said Trump discussed foreign policy priorities during his meeting with senators on Wednesday, but declined to share details.
Risch appears to pay little attention to Trump’s threats to take the United States out of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
“I think now everyone has recognized what Russia has done, that the original founders of NATO were very right that we have to stand up and unite,” he said. “I don’t think it occurs to anyone that we should leave NATO.”
“We had a vote here in Congress on whether or not we should leave NATO,” he continued. “The vote passed overwhelmingly.”
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In December 2023, Congress passed legislation as part of the NDAA that prohibited any president from removing the United States from NATO without two-thirds approval of the Senate or an act of Congress. That provision was spearheaded by Rubio.
Risch said that after Trump’s first term and Russia’s invasion of ukrainenations began “very slowly” to increase their military budgets. Canada is not on track to reach the 2% target until 2032.
But now, 23 of NATO’s 32 states meet the 2% target, which Republicans say is not enough.
Risch said he has long planned to work to get allies to increase their spending.
“We’re going to have to do more. So there’s a lot of discussion about what that’s going to look like, and President Trump and I believe that European countries are going to fall in line. They really need that.”
Trump said in December that “absolutely” leave NATO if its terms were not met. He has long advocated for other members of the 32-member alliance to increase defense spending.
“If they are paying their bills and I think they are treating us fairly, the answer is absolutely I would stay with NATO,” he said.
But for some, the comments were seen as leverage, a way to force nations lagging in defense spending to increase it. While NATO has long had a goal of its member states spending 2% on defense, and many are still negligent, Trump recently changed the goal to 5%, more than any nation currently spends.
“Everyone can afford it, but they should be in the five percent, not the two percent,” Trump said during an appearance at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday.
He complained that Europe had much more to lose than the United States, given its geographical proximity to its adversaries.
“Europe is in for a small fraction of the money that awaits us,” Trump said during an appearance at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Tuesday night. “We have something called the ocean between us, right? Why are we waiting for billions of dollars more than Europe?”
Last year, the United States spent 3.4% of its GDP on defense. Poland was the country that spent the most, with 4.12%.
Risch, who last chaired the Foreign Relations Committee from 2019 to 2021, said he plans to work with Trump to return to a “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, tightening sanctions to squeeze the regime’s economic system.
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“They are going to return to maximum pressure,” he said. “I’m rooting for him.”
“The Biden administration threw a bunch of cash at them and begged them to come to the table to make a deal.”
“Iran is going to have to make some really difficult decisions, because I just don’t see, with the outside pressure that they’re getting, with the internal pressure that they’re getting, that they can sustain what they’ve been doing.”