119-s2174

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2174 Introduced in Senate

    (IS) ]

<DOC>

119th CONGRESS
 1st Session
 S. 2174

 To require the President to give notice of denunciation of the North 
Atlantic Treaty for purposes of withdrawing the United States from the 
 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and for other purposes.

_______________________________________________________________________

 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

 June 25 (legislative day, June 24), 2025

 Mr. Lee introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
 referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

 A BILL

 To require the President to give notice of denunciation of the North 
Atlantic Treaty for purposes of withdrawing the United States from the 
 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and for other purposes.

 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

 This Act may be cited as the ``Not A Trusted Organization Act'' or 
the ``NATO Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

 Congress makes the following findings:

    (1) The North Atlantic Treaty (also known as the 
 ``Washington Treaty'') was signed on April 4, 1949, in 
 Washington, DC, and created the North Atlantic Treaty 
 Organization

    (NATO) .

    (2) NATO was intended to counterbalance the political and 
 military power of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe and was 
 originally composed of 12 member states representing Western 
 Europe and its transatlantic partners.

    (3) The preamble to the Washington Treaty affirms that the 
 Parties will ``unite their efforts for collective defense''. 
 Similarly, Article 3 of the Washington Treaty provides that 
 each Party will ``maintain and develop their individual and 
 collective capacity to resist armed attack''.

    (4) The Warsaw Pact served as the collective defense bloc 
 of the Soviet Union and collapsed in 1991, followed by the 
 collapse of the Soviet Union itself by the end of that year.

    (5) Shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union, United 
 States Secretary of State James Baker made assurances to Soviet 
 Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand 
 eastward.

    (6) The dissolution of both the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet 
 Union fundamentally altered the security environment in Europe 
 and rendered NATO's founding collective defense mission 
 irrelevant.

    (7) Despite its waning relevance and prior assurances to 
 the contrary, NATO began a profound eastward expansion in 1999, 
 which, as of 2025, culminated in a land border with the Russian 
 Federation that exceeds 1,500 miles and encircles the Baltic 
 Sea.

    (8) Successive National Military Doctrines and National 
 Security Strategies of the Russian Federation have framed the 
 expansion of NATO as a pervasive threat to Russian security.

    (9) In a speech before the Munich Security Conference in 
 2007, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin 
 described NATO expansion as a ``serious provocation'' and 
 referenced the assurances previously made by the United States.

    (10) The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in 
 2022 demonstrates the Russian Federation's willingness to 
 employ military action in response to perceived security 
 threats.

    (11) NATO members have refused to rule out further 
 expansion.

    (12) Since the founding of NATO, the United States has 
 shouldered the burden of what was characterized as a 
 ``collective'' security alliance, as the largest financial and 
 hard power contributor.

    (13) At the Wales Summit in 2014, NATO members pledged to 
 spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, 
 known as the ``Wales Pledge''.

    (14) More than a decade later, nearly \1/3\ of NATO members 
 fail to meet the Wales Pledge.

    (15) Consistent with United States national security 
 interests, Europe is not a priority theater for United States 
 engagement. The principal interest of the United States in 
 Europe is preventing the emergence of a regional hegemon.

    (16) The combined military and economic capacity of 
 European NATO members exceeds that of the Russian Federation, 
 serving as a sufficient counterweight to a prospective regional 
 hegemon without United States engagement.

    (17) While the United States continues to subsidize 
 European security, European NATO members are disincentivized 
 from forward movement on burden shifting in the European 
 theater.

    (18) Membership of the United States in NATO is 
 inconsistent with the national security interests of the United 
 States.

SEC. 3. DENUNCIATION OF NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY.

 Consistent with Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty, done at 
Washington April 4, 1949, not later than 30 days after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, the President shall give notice of denunciation 
of the North Atlantic Treaty for purposes of withdrawing the United 
States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

SEC. 4. FULFILLMENT OF REQUIREMENT OF 

SECTION 1250A OF THE NATIONAL 
 DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2024.

 This Act satisfies the requirement of 

section 1250A of the National 
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 (22 U.S.C. 1928f) for 
congressional authorization of suspension, termination, denunciation, 
or withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty.

SEC. 5. PROHIBITION ON THE USE OF FUNDS.

 No funds authorized to be appropriated, appropriated, or otherwise 
made available by any Act may be used to fund, directly or indirectly, 
United States contributions to the common-funded budgets of the North 
Atlantic Treaty Organization, including the civil budget, the military 
budget, or the Security Investment Program.

SEC. 6. SEVERABILITY.

 If any provision of this Act or the application of such provision 
to any person or circumstance is held to be unconstitutional, the 
remainder of this Act and the application of the provision to any other 
person or circumstance shall not be affected.
 <all>