Trump withdrawals from NATO
Scott R. Anderson, July 25, 2018 (David M. Rubenstein fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He previously served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State) Saving NATO, Lawfare//guptaneal
Trump has made clear that he believes he can withdraw from NATO without seeking congressional approval, consistent with the mainstream position discussed above. This leaves Congress without any clear mechanism for blocking such action. And even if Congress passed a law opposing withdrawal, it seems unlikely that the executive branch would consider itself bound to respect the legislature’s wishes. Instead, Congress would most likely need to challenge the constitutionality of the president’s actions in the courts—an approach that has failed in the past, though there is reason to think that certain challenges may have more success in the future.