Why the NYT Had to Issue a Monster Correction for This Piece About Trump and NATO

Oh no, NATO is getting its feelings hurt by Donald Trump. Good!

They’re the most useless, ungrateful group we could associate with, and if we don’t follow Mr. Obama’s 2012 remark that ‘the 80s called and want their foreign policy back,’ the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a relic of the Cold War and should be dissolved or significantly reworked. There are too many freeloaders and countries that can’t contribute anything meaningful to strengthen this alliance. Trump's criticisms are valid.

That continent is snobby. They hate us, and frankly, I could do without them right now. But, you know, the press, who love the Europeans, are going to peddle this nonsense: If NATO goes away, everyone will die.

Okay, it's not that hyperbolic, but whatever argument is made for staying in NATO can take a pass this week. Just look at The New York Times’ piece about it, though the real story was the initial headline. Apparently, someone at the publication didn't know what NATO stood for.

Does the @nytimes know what NATO stands for? pic.twitter.com/wvD1WxPOnN
— Sasha Issenberg (@sissenberg) April 3, 2026

A correction will appear in tomorrow's print edition:
"A headline with an article on Friday about President Trump’s threats to leave NATO misstated the full name of the body. It is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, not the North American Treaty Organization."
— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) April 3, 2026

There are corrections and there are
CORRECTIONS. pic.twitter.com/Hse8WICCvU
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) April 3, 2026

The alliance, built after World War II to deter the Soviet Union and keep the peace in Europe, is in crisis, with some questioning whether it can survive. The Mideast war has brought existing doubts about American commitment to the alliance to the fore, argued Ivo Daalder, a former American ambassador to NATO.
“It’s hard to see how any European country will now be able and willing to trust the United States to come to its defense,” he said. “Hope, perhaps. But they can’t count on it.”
In his speech to the nation Wednesday night, Mr. Trump did not mention NATO, to the relief of allies.
But a senior European official said he thought most Europeans did not believe that Article 5, the NATO commitment to collective defense, still had teeth. The United States now seems part of the problem of world disorder, the official said, speaking anonymously given the sensitivity of the topic. The country is no longer the solution and the guarantor of last resort, he said.