Bipartisan House Rejection of a Trumpist Bill to Defund NATO Fund for American Troops

The United States House of Representatives overwhelmingly rejected a bill sponsored by a Trumpist isolationist Republican to defund a $400 million fund for American troops based in Europe as a contingent of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the defensive pact that has deterred aggression against Western Europe and America since 1949. Donald Trump and his supporters misrepresent NATO as an organization into which its 30 members pay dues, but there is only minimal shared funding for its administration, as each member State funds its own defense, with a goal of spending at least 2% of their gross domestic product, which an increasing number of members meet in the face of Russian aggression. Over three quarters of Republicans opposed the bill, as did all Democrats. The attempt came shortly before the eightieth anniversary of the Allied Invasion of Normandy and shortly after the 75th anniversary of the most successful defensive pact in history. In my last post, I noted the parallel between the allied effort led by the U.S. against fascist aggression in Europe by the Axis Powers and the American-led allied effort, including through NATO, to defend Ukraine with defensive aid, training, and intelligence-sharing against Russian aggression. The Russian Federation, the successor state to the Soviet Union, against which NATO was formed, is currently led by tyrant Vladimir Putin, an ex-Soviet intelligence officer who is trying to restore the Soviet/Russian Empire. Trump and some of his supporters are pro-Putin. Although the rejection by most Republicans of the bill is satisfactory, the bill and vote nonetheless demonstrate the shifting away from the GOP’s traditional pro-security stance and an increasing shift toward it by the Democratic Party.