Institute for Peace and Prosperity, Released on 3/3/25

Over the weekend, President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk made quite a stir with just two words posted on his social media platform, X. Responding to a post that, “It’s time to leave NATO and the UN,” Musk replied, “I agree.” The comment immediately made the rounds on social media and also on mainstream and alternative media.

Was this the Elon Musk who owns X speaking, or was it the Elon Musk who has become one of President Trump’s closest advisors? Does it even matter? Having someone so close to the US president who advocates finally extracting the US from these international organizations is a significant and very positive shift for the United States.

With the truth coming out about how USAID has been working against US interests for decades, the disinfectant of public scrutiny is now turning to our membership in – and generous funding of – international organizations like NATO and the United Nations.

I have long advocated our exit from NATO. At the end of the Cold War, with its very reason for existence gone, NATO decided to look for other ways of stirring up trouble. First NATO involved itself in the first Gulf War and then it decided its mission should be to bomb Serbia to smithereens – in the name of “human rights.” I agree with the late Sen. Robert Taft, who argued at the time NATO was formed that we should not join the “Atlantic Alliance.”

It has become much clearer these past few months just how far NATO has shifted away from US interests. Even though the United States funds a whopping 70 percent of NATO’s cost, our own NATO “allies” are working against the United States as President Trump attempts to pull us back from the brink of war with Russia.

A simple telephone call between Presidents Trump and Putin was met with hysteria among NATO member countries, and Just as US and Russian high-level delegations were meeting in Saudi Arabia to look for way to walk back from a war footing, our “allies” decided to hold their own summit in opposition to the US move. In Paris our “partners” pledged to continue their failed Ukraine policy and to ridicule the United States for looking to try something different.

To add insult to injury, right at the center of the table in Paris was none other than the Secretary General of NATO himself, former Dutch politician Mark Rutte! The message was very clear: “we are working against you – we push war while you push peace – but you must keep footing the bill.”

Also over the weekend Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep Thomas Massie (R-KY) echoed Elon Musk’s sentiment, with Sen. Lee posting a chart showing the wildly disproportionate amount of US taxpayer dollars that go to funding NATO with the statement, “Get us out of NATO.” Rep. Massie added to Lee’s comment, “N ATO is a Cold War relic that needs to be relegated to a talking kiosk at the Smithsonian.”

As in the time of Sen. Robert Taft, the sentiment against NATO membership is coming from the conservative end of the US political spectrum. With President Trump’s clear mandate to pursue his “America first” agenda we have the best opportunity in decades to sever our damaging and expensive entangling alliances across the globe. Let’s start with NATO!

  NATO, russia, Trump, Ukraine, ww3