Former NATO Secretary General's New Book Reveals: Trump Proposed Excluding Norway from NATO.

Norwegian Finance Minister Stoltenberg disclosed in his upcoming memoir "My Tenure: Leadership of NATO During War" that U.S. President Trump proposed excluding Norway from NATO during his term, citing the reason that Norway had not met the alliance's target of spending 2% of GDP on defense.

This Norwegian NATO leader, who stepped down in 2024, detailed his meeting with Trump at the White House in 2018.

At that time, Trump directly asked, "If Norway doesn't pay, can they adopt the Swedish model?"—referring to Sweden's status at the time as not being a member of NATO. Stoltenberg admitted in his book that this conversation deeply worried him, fearing that NATO might face a crisis of survival.

According to Stoltenberg's recollection, his first communication with Trump occurred on November 18, 2016, shortly after Trump won the election, when the new president claimed to be a "faithful fan" of NATO.

However, over time, Trump's attitude became increasingly firm, mainly targeting European allies who had not met their defense spending targets.

On May 25, 2017, before the NATO summit, Stoltenberg said he had sensed that the meeting might face difficulties.

Indeed, during the summit, Trump publicly questioned whether the United States should provide assistance to allied countries if they were attacked militarily and complained about the excessive costs borne by the United States.

Stoltenberg described the 2018 NATO summit in his book as a critical moment that could lead to the collapse of the alliance. Trump clearly stated that unless European allies increased their defense budgets, the United States would withdraw its support for NATO.

"I thought this might be the meeting that marked the end of NATO," Stoltenberg wrote, "it operated for 70 years, but it was not the same after July 12, 2018."

If the U.S. president states that he will no longer defend other allies and leaves the NATO summit in protest, then the NATO treaty and security guarantees become meaningless," he added.

Norwegian Finance Minister Stoltenberg

Faced with Trump's hardline stance, most European NATO countries believed that cooperation with the U.S. should be given lower priority before a new leader emerged in the White House, as they felt "Trump was too unpredictable."

However, Stoltenberg took a different approach. On one hand, he pushed European leaders to accelerate their commitments to increase defense spending; on the other hand, he worked to maintain dialogue channels with Trump.

When the differences between the U.S. and European countries were partially resolved, he felt "inexpressibly relieved."

A spokesperson for the White House, Anna, recently told Newsweek that Trump "achieved what many thought was impossible by securing commitments from NATO allies to spend 5% of their budgets," she said.

She added that this achievement would benefit Europe and the entire world through "peace through strength," while also bringing billions of dollars in revenue for the U.S. defense industry through arms sales to NATO allies.

Since Stoltenberg left his post in November 2024, the Trump administration has continued to push for higher defense spending standards within NATO.

At the NATO summit held in The Hague in June 2025, the U.S. successfully pushed allies to move toward a new benchmark of 5% of GDP on defense spending by 2035.

Currently, all NATO members have achieved the 2% defense spending target, which is seen to some extent as a result of pressure during Trump's tenure.

However, the revelations in Stoltenberg's new book have also raised concerns about Washington's continued commitment to NATO, especially against the backdrop of a potential re-election of Trump.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7555752385512915456/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author. Please express your opinion by clicking on the [Up/Down] buttons below.