NATO diplomats fear US midterms will free Trump to cut European troops and funding

Pentagon officials are due to present options on the American military presence in Europe to Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on 6 November. Decision Desk HQ gives the Democrats a 78 percent chance of winning the House.

European NATO diplomats fear a Republican defeat in the United States midterm elections would leave President Donald Trump free to cut American troops and funding for Europe's defence. Five diplomats said a weakened Trump might act more sharply against NATO. Pentagon officials are due to present options on the US military presence in Europe to Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on 6 November 2026.

NATO diplomats' fears come against the backdrop of allies that fall short of NATO targets, and the Czech Republic is among them. It fulfills only 30 percent of NATO's capability building targets, according to reporting by Irozhlas and Novinky, and the most resource-intensive ones lag five to ten years behind. Czech defence spending could reach two percent of gross domestic product for the first time next year, the minimum commitment set by NATO in 2014. The Babiš government does not plan to increase the budget for 2028 and 2029, which the army's concept says means real development of forces is not expected in that period.

A senior European defense official told Politico that lame-duck presidents facing a hostile Congress typically engage in a mix of venting frustrations and adventurism in foreign policy, and that attacking NATO seemed a consistent part of the Trump worldview. NATO diplomats said Trump could also cut American contributions to NATO's common funding and limit the PURL scheme, which pools allied money to buy American weapons for Ukraine. NATO diplomats said Trump might also tie troop deployments, Ukraine and European security to a broader agreement with Putin.

Montenegrin Defense Minister Dragan Krapović was skeptical that Trump would take drastic action against NATO. Speculation about him leaving the alliance has not materialized, he noted, and Congress makes the final decision on fewer American troops in Europe. "We have had speculations all the time about Trump... coming out of NATO; this has not happened so far," he said. The White House said Trump has done more for NATO than anyone else. It cited the agreement to raise defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product by 2035. It also pointed to a bigger American military presence in Greenland and efforts to end Russia's war in Ukraine.

Decision Desk HQ, an American election forecasting service, gives the Democrats a 78 percent chance of winning the House in the midterms and 57 percent of taking the Senate. The 2026 defence bill forbids cutting US forces in Europe below 76,000 without first consulting allies. The House version passed in July would keep that floor and order a review of that 5,000-troop cut. The full review is expected by December 2026.