Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President. I regret it is necessary to re-introduce legislation that prevents a President from withdrawing the United States from NATO. Recent reports confirm that President Trump has repeatedly proposed doing so over the past year. In addition to concern over U.S. national security, this threat to withdraw also raises important constitutional issues. What is the role of Congress in treaties--not just entering into them, but also leaving them? Particularly with a treaty obligation that is as central to U.S. security as NATO--as repeatedly affirmed by Congress--no president should or can be allowed to unilaterally withdraw without the advice and consent of the Senate.

Our allies with whom we have fought alongside since World War II and earlier in some cases, are questioning our allegiance for the first time in the history of the modern international order. President Trump has called our European allies ``foes'' while aligning himself with a brutal authoritarian, Vladimir Putin, over the professional assessment of the U.S. intelligence community. Last year, at the NATO summit in Brussels, the President insulted our allies and threatened to leave the alliance if defense spending was not ramped up. The President has also questioned the U.S. commitment to NATO's mutual defense provision and we still do not know what he discussed with President Putin at their meeting in Helsinki. As such, we are forced to ask what options we have to preserve U.S. membership in the primary tool of peace and stability for the last 70 years, NATO.

In response to the only invocation of Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, more than 1,100 servicemembers from our NATO allies have given their lives fighting alongside the United States. This is a sacrifice that should not be cast aside by our President who continues to depict the alliance as a protection racket and ``obsolete.'' While we must continue to press every country to increase defense spending to meet the agreed-upon goal of 2 percent of GDP by 2024, the President should not disparage our allies and threaten NATO withdrawal. Unfortunately, without action from Congress, he might just do so. For this reason, we must firmly state opposition, use our constitutional powers of advice and consent and of the purse to block any withdrawal and preemptively authorize legal proceedings to challenge any decision to terminate U.S. membership.

The legislation I am introducing today along with Senators Gardner, Reed, Graham, Coons, Rubio, Blumenthal, and Collins, is a bipartisan message to the President and the necessary tool needed to block this President, or any President, from unilaterally terminating the NATO treaty. It is the position of the Senate, supported by this Resolution, and previous resolutions, including the original vote of 82-13 in 1949 to give the Senate's advice and consent to join NATO, that the United States through its elected officials is unequivocally opposed to the U.S. withdrawing from NATO.

I am proud to have bipartisan support for this bill to ensure that the safety of the American people is prioritized through our continued membership in NATO. Lastly, supporting this bill would fittingly honor the late Senator John McCain, one of the fiercest advocates for NATO, who co-sponsored this bill last year--one of the last bills he co- sponsored. I strongly encourage my colleagues in both the Senate and the House of Representative to support this legislation.

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