Several
White House sources have come forward to claim that US President Donald Trump’s
late-May speech before NATO allies was written to include a line explicitly
endorsing the alliance’s collective security provision, Article 5. But that
line was conspicuously absent from the speech actually delivered.
During
Trump's May 25 speech before NATO leaders, he made no direct endorsement of
Article 5.
The speech was made during an "Article 5 dedication," and
Trump did reference it at the beginning of his speech: "This ceremony is a
day for both remembrance and resolve.
We remember and mourn those nearly 3,000
innocent people who were brutally murdered by terrorists on Sept. 11th, 2001.
Our NATO allies responded swiftly and decisively, invoking for the first time
in its history the Article 5 collective defense commitments."
Trump did
say that the US would "never forsake the friends that stood by our
side" in the aftermath of 9/11. But after that, Trump's speech shifted to
a chastisement of NATO allies who haven't been committing at least 2 percent of
their GDP to defense, an encouraged-but-optional pledge of member states.
Only
a handful of member states, among them the US, the UK, Greece, Estonia, and
Poland, meet that pledge. The other 24 members do not.
Besides his
speech's opening, Trump didn't address the contentious provision at all.
This
makes him the first president in the organization's 68-year history to not do
so.
Some were
surprised. Others were not. But the issue of Trump's support of Article 5
gained a new wrinkle when White House sources told reporters that such a line
was originally included in the speech.
"They
had the right speech and it was cleared through [National Security Advisor HR]
McMaster," a source told Politico directly after the speech.
"As late
as that same morning, it was the right one."
"There
was a fully coordinated other speech everybody else had worked on," said a
second White House source, adding that it wasn't the speech Trump gave.
"They
didn't know [the line expressing support for Article 5] had been removed,"
a third source told the New York Times. "It was only upon delivery."
Reportedly,
everyone from aides to top officials were surprised to hear Trump's speech.
McMaster, as well as Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson, voiced support for a statement explicitly affirming Trump's support
for Article 5, so as to assuage fears of NATO allies that the iconoclastic
president would distance the US from the alliance.
All three men have publicly
supported the provision.
Immediately,
White House officials went into damage-control mode for the president's gaffe —
or intentional omission.
That same day, White House press secretary Sean Spicer
said that Trump is "fully committed" to the collective security of
NATO.
"We're
not playing cutesy with this," Spicer told reporters.
"I've seen some
of the questions I've gotten from you guys, but there's 100 percent commitment
to Article 5."
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