(Tony Sifert, Headline USA) Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was the lone senator to vote against expanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization by incorporating Sweden and Finland, The Hill reported.
Senate Resolution 646, which “welcomes Finland and Sweden’s decision to join [NATO],” passed through the Senate on a 95-1 vote, with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voting “present” after the failure of an amendment by which he sought to secure Congressional authority over declarations of war.
Expanding NATO does not make America safer. That’s the bottom line. Our priorities now should be to defend against China abroad and our own border at home pic.twitter.com/UApuSz4iGU
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) August 4, 2022
“I sure do hear a lot of people who care a lot about other nations’ borders but don’t seem to care a whole lot about ours,” Hawley told Tucker Carlson after the vote was announced.
Hawley’s explanation of his vote on the Senate floor went viral Wednesday after the senator posted a clip of the speech to his Twitter account.
“Finland and Sweden want to expand NATO because it is in their national security interest to do so—and fair enough,” Hawley said. “The question that should properly be before us, however, is: is it in the United States’ interest to do so?”
Hawley went on to accuse the neoliberal uniparty of attempting to engage in nation-building on behalf of the “liberal world order” and at the expense of American citizens.
In an essay published in National Interest, Hawley suggested that NATO is a one-way street in which Europeans contribute very little.
“Even absent armed conflict, NATO expansion would almost certainly mean more U.S. forces in Europe for the long haul, more military hardware devoted there, and more dollars spent—to the detriment of our security needs in Asia, to say nothing of needs at home,” Hawley wrote.
