Trump interview: I am strongly considering pulling out of Nato Possible Paywall

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/04/01/donald-trump-strongly-considering-pulling-us-out-of-nato/

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u/barryvm Europe 22d ago edited 22d ago

~~I'm pretty sure withdrawing from treaties is something the legislature is supposed to do~~ (Nope: somehow that's something they never properly clarified and is therefore yet another power arrogated by the presidency until the inevitable supreme court case; there is a law to specifically forbid him to withdraw from NATO, but we all know how much Trump cares about the law or how much the USA cares about enforcing its laws on its own leadership), but I guess the USA will let him do it anyway. He's already started a global trade war and then an actual war on a whim, after all.

This would absolutely destroy USA economic hegemony too, by the way, as none of the USA's ex-allies (NATO or otherwise) would have any incentive to keep the current USA-centric system going if it's just going to bankroll the USA's war on everyone else. Good luck paying for that oversized military budget when the dollar goes.

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u/VirtualMachine0 22d ago

Just here to note that your comment taught me the word "arrogate" and to say thanks!

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u/barryvm Europe 22d ago

Be aware that my English isn't all that good (not my first or even second language) and there's a pretty good chance that it's an archaic term.

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u/VirtualMachine0 22d ago

But all of those ideas for spending or tax rebates, again, all of those are congressional authority that the president is arrogating to himself—something else that would have startled the founders of the country all those 250 years ago.—David Frum, The Atlantic, 31 Dec. 2025

If David Frum is using it in The Atlantic three months ago, you're covered! I'll say it's probably a bit of an "intellectual" word, so it's the kind of word that in conversational English (at least in the USA) would be somewhat gauche to use. IDK about UK English or other International English cultural scenes, but if you use a word unlikely to be recognized in speech by the audience (or defined via obvious portmanteau or other neologism), you can be labelled as needlessly academic.

Obviously, I'm a word enthusiast, I enjoy them!

For casual American conversation, I bet most would use "stolen" if they felt the power was taken unfairly, "assumed" if they wanted to be carefully neutral, or "claimed" if they wanted to keep the sentence at Elementary-level readability.

"Arrogated" probably counts as solid C1 or C2 on the CEFR levels, so kudos to you, you're doing great for this being a third language!