Obama reassures NATO leader after Trump rants

Barack Obama wants NATO to know that, unlike Donald Trump, he'll never let go.

The president met with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House on Monday, a gathering that drew heightened interest in the wake of suggestions by Trump, the GOP presidential front-runner, that it may be time to leave the decades-old security alliance.


"NATO continues to be a linchpin, a cornerstone of U.S. security policy," Obama said alongside Stoltenberg in a brief media appearance after the meeting. The president also touted his $3.4 billion budget request to place an extra U.S. army brigade in Eastern Europe as a move that lets NATO "know we stand by commitment to our allies."

Stoltenberg stressed the continued need for a strong partnership. "NATO is as important as ever, because NATO has been able to adapt to a more dangerous world," he said.

The meeting, which Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Secretary of State John Kerry also attended, had been in the works for more than two months and was designed in part to mark the 67th anniversary of the military alliance.

Trump has been calling NATO "obsolete" and telling audiences that "it's possible that we're going to have to let NATO go." The billionaire's main beef with NATO is that other members rely too much on the U.S. to pick up their bills, and that Americans need to get a better deal.

Trump's criticisms about NATO funding have been echoed to some degree by American leaders, including Obama, but his willingness to abandon the alliance is at odds with the Democratic and Republican mainstreams. Trump's comments also come as Europeans feel under growing threat from Russia, which has long viewed NATO with suspicion.

Obama has been increasingly open about his disdain for the real estate mogul — last week, at the end of the Nuclear Security Summit, the president said Trump's apparent preference for seeing more countries get nuclear weapons proved he "doesn't know much about ... the world, generally."

NATO, a 28-member alliance, has been a pillar of U.S.-European security in the post-World War II era. NATO members have fought alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and several are important players in the coalition taking on the Islamic State terrorist network in Syria and Iraq.

"We are grateful for the sacrifices that NATO countries have made" in Afghanistan, Obama said on Monday. "The men and women have fought alongside U.S. troops. They have fought together and they've died together."

The anti-terrorism fight is especially sensitive for Europeans. They have been dealing not only with the fallout from suicide bombings in Paris and Brussels, but also fears that terrorists lurk among the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have traveled to the continent from Syria and other nations in the past year.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine also has given NATO a new reason to fortify itself and is why some European states have started raising their military spending. In response to Moscow's actions, the U.S. has said it will increase the number of heavy weapons, armored vehicles and other materials it sends to NATO allies in Eastern and Central Europe.

While stressing America's willingness to stand up to Russian aggression against NATO, Obama also said it was important to keep talking to Moscow, especially about the future of Ukraine.

"We think it's important to maintain a dialogue with Russia and in a very transparent fashion indicate the firmness of our resolve to protect our values and our allies" but also to "reduce tensions and prevent an escalation," the president said.

Neither man mentioned Trump by name, or took questions, but their message was clearly at odds with the Republican's. Toward the end of the media appearance, a reporter shouted a question about Trump's comments on NATO, but Obama merely smiled and said, "Thank you very much."