Trump’s Transactional Approach and the Conditionality of U.S. Commitment to NATO: A Neorealist Analysis

Abstract

This study examines Donald Trump’s transactional approach toward NATO and its implications for U.S. alliance management. Although burden-sharing has been a long-standing issue within NATO, Trump’s approach differed in tone, intensity, and political meaning. Earlier U.S. administrations also encouraged European allies to increase defense spending, but Trump framed the issue more directly through cost, payment, reciprocity, and conditional commitment. Using neorealism as the analytical framework, this article argues that Trump did not dismantle NATO or formally abandon the alliance. Instead, he changed the political logic of U.S.–NATO relations by making American commitment appear more conditional, cost-conscious, and interest-based. NATO remained institutionally intact, Article 5 continued to exist as the basis of collective defense, and U.S. participation in NATO structures continued. However, Trump’s criticism of NATO as “obsolete,” his demands that allies “pay their fair share,” and his conditional rhetoric weakened trust, raised fears of abandonment, and intensified European debates over strategic autonomy. The article concludes that NATO’s institutional resilience constrained Trump’s ability to withdraw from or fundamentally break the alliance, but it could not fully prevent damage to the credibility and reassurance that sustain alliance cohesion.