Thread by @SenRandPaul

President Trump is right to strongly consider leaving NATO.
I support the President’s constitutional authority under Article II to withdraw from any treaty — including NATO — without needing Senate approval. Congress tried to block that with the 2023 Kaine-Rubio provision in the NDAA, but the Constitution grants the executive power to the president.
thehill.com/homenews/admin…

Treaty making is an executive power. The Constitution’s requirement that treaties may only be made with the consent of two-thirds of the Senate is a limitation on this inherent executive authority, the purpose of which is make it difficult to get enter into alliances.
nationalreview.com/news/senate-pa…

The Constitution’s silence on treaty withdrawal means that the president retains the executive authority to remove the United States from treaty obligations. The Founders were wise to make it be difficult to enter into treaty obligations and easy to withdraw from them once they were no longer in the national interest.

NATO’s Article 5 cannot obligate us to war. It requires only “such action as it deems necessary” consistent with each nation’s Constitution. Congress alone has the power to declare war — no alliance overrides that. The alliance is already too big from endless expansion. We need a real debate: Is this Cold War structure still useful to American interests, or has it become a one-way burden?
paul.senate.gov/op_eds/respons…

Trump is forcing the conversation on burden-sharing. Alliances should serve us — not entangle us indefinitely. Let’s have that honest discussion.