Asked about the NATO alliance, Trump said the United States has “never needed” NATO. He added “they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that, and they did – they stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines”.
This was profoundly wrong. Such NATO nations as Britain and Denmark suffered considerable fatalities and casualties on the frontline. As did Australia, a NATO partner, which suffered 47 deaths and over 260 wounded. The Australian Defence Force’s involvement is well depicted in Aaron Patrick’s recently released book, The Last Battle (Macmillan Australia, 2025).
In time, Britain and Denmark made strong objections to the President’s comments. And Trump made what is probably best depicted as a non-apology apology. He described the 457 British servicemen and women who died in the Afghanistan campaign “as among the greatest of all warriors” – and left it at that. Well, it was better than nothing.
Trump is invariably abrasive and self-centred. But, as an America First nationalist, he is not unusual.
It’s important for Australians to recall that Trump is part of a deep tradition in the US whereby a commitment to isolation is superseded on occasions by international commitments.
I was reminded of this on January 24 when listening to ABC Radio National’s Saturday Extra presented by Nick Bryant. It being the summer break, an interview was replayed that took place with Lowy Institute director Michael Fullilove, who comments widely on Australian-American relations.
On February 15 last year, Fullilove compared Trump unfavourably with the Democratic Party’s president Franklin D. Roosevelt. He stated: “Franklin Roosevelt took America out of that period in the 1930s of isolationism and nativism and, of course, one of the groups that he fought against was called America First.”
Fullilove said that FDR had a broad interest in the forces of democracy succeeding and was interested in what happened in Europe and Asia. He added that “many of those impulses … President Trump clearly does not share”.
This overlooked the fact that, speaking in Boston in October 1940, FDR declared that “American boys are not going to be sent to any foreign wars”. At that time the foreign war was between Britain and its dominions (eg, Canada and Australia) and the Nazi-Fascist Axis. At the time, the US was neutral, Germany and the Soviet Union were allies due to the Nazi Soviet Pact (of 1939-41), and France had been defeated.
The US entered the Pacific War against Japan after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. As it turned out, Germany and Italy declared war on the US on December 11, 1941 and the US responded the same day.
By the time the US entered the European/African theatre, the war could have been lost were it not for the courage of the Allies led by British prime minister Winston Churchill and with important contributions made by Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and some others.
It was much the same with World War I when Democrat Woodrow Wilson was in the White House. The US declared war on Imperial Germany in April 1917 and US forces did not see battle until the end of October.
Germany surrendered on November 11, 1918. The war could have been lost in 1914, 1915 or 1916.
During World War II, US forces played an important role in defeating Germany’s forces on the western front, with Soviet forces succeeding on the eastern front. But, as with WWI, Germany could have prevailed while FDR led an officially neutral nation.
Certainly, the US preserved the peace in Western Europe after 1945. But not before FDR essentially caved in to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in the negotiation leading to Germany’s surrender.
As Adam B. Ulam wrote in his 1968 book, Expansion and Coexistence: “World War II had begun as an attempt by the West to prevent Germany’s goals of domination of Eastern Europe and the consequent destruction of European balance of power; within two years of the war’s end, those aims had been achieved by the USSR (Soviet Union).”
US forces protected Western Europe during the Cold War until the collapse of the Soviet Union. But FDR’s diplomatic weakness prevailed over Churchill’s warnings about Stalin’s iron curtain up to then.
Trump projects strength – along with an unpredictability – not exhibited by the Democratic Obama and Biden administrations. But the reality of US failures in South Vietnam and Afghanistan sends a clear message that it is foolish for US allies to rely too much on alliances with Washington DC. Even though the US has supported the likes of South Korea since 1951 and Taiwan – up to now, at least.
Prime Minister Mark Carney, of the left-of-centre Canadian Liberal Party, won plaudits from Trump Derangement Syndrome types for his speech at the World Economic Forum – where he distanced himself from the US President without mentioning his name. Carney warned about the great powers, but soon after signed off on a new strategic partnership with China.
Half a century ago in Australia, anti-communist Catholic BA Santamaria and anti-communist Jew Frank Knopfelmacher were strong supporters of the Australian-US alliance.
But they also maintained that Australia could not rely on the US and advocated a substantial increase in defence spending.
At the moment there are mutual benefits in the Australia-US alliance. But a US president might not see it this way in the future.
The Republican Trump administration has not changed the US in any permanent way with respect to foreign policy. Rather, it is part of one tradition – America First. This prevails and then wanes over time – even within presidencies. FDR demonstrates the point.
It’s important that the US’s allies stand up within their respective alliances. In this sense, the leaders of Britain and Denmark, among others, were correct in reminding Trump what their military had done in Afghanistan. It might diminish his America First commitment, for a while at least.
There are about three years left of President Donald J. Trump’s time in the White House. But it is unlikely that he will repeat such an egregious error as the comment he made to Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo at Davos in Switzerland late last week.