Trump Administration Targets Federal Spending on Higher Education and Foreign Alliances

The Trump administration is simultaneously pursuing two distinct but philosophically linked attacks on established institutions—federal spending for higher education and America's 75-year-old NATO alliance—but neither side of the political debate is being honest about what's actually being proposed or why previous administrations made these commitments in the first place.

The specifics: The Department of Education announced it would halt taxpayer funding for college degrees it determines are "worthless," using language from a statement that said "now is the time for a hard reset in higher education." Simultaneously, National Review's own analysis confirmed that "yes, President Trump can withdraw from NATO"—he has the constitutional authority—though the piece carefully noted it doesn't mean "he should." These aren't hypotheticals. The first is active policy. The second is an explicit threat being made by administration officials.

The right is framing this as common-sense reform. The Federalist headlines the education piece as stopping "taxpayer funding of worthless college degrees," using language that pre-judges which degrees are worthless without specifying which programs face cuts or what criteria determine worthlessness. National Review's coverage of NATO acknowledges Trump's constitutional standing but frames the real issue as a question of whether withdrawal "serves U.S. interests." Missing from both: any acknowledgment that the same federal government that's supposedly being prudent about education spending has spent $2.4 trillion on wars in the Middle East since 2001—roughly equivalent to four years of total federal higher education spending.

The left isn't present in the sources provided, but the predictable frame would be that Trump is dismantling access to education and abandoning America's allies in a moment of global instability. What that frame omits: legitimate debate about whether every federally funded degree produces employable graduates, and whether NATO—created in 1949 to counter Soviet expansion—still serves the original purpose that justified 75 years of American military commitment. Those are real questions. Neither side is asking them honestly.

The actual history both sides are quietly omitting: NATO was designed as a collective defense against Soviet invasion. The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. For the subsequent 35 years, NATO expanded eastward—taking in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and others—despite explicit assurances to Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand into former Soviet spheres. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, NATO members invoked Article 5 for the first time since 9/11, but not because Russia invaded a NATO member—because NATO had gradually made the decision to guarantee Ukraine's security without formalizing the commitment. Similarly, federal student loan programs were designed in the 1960s when college cost $2,000 per year. They now cost $35,000 per year, but the government kept funding regardless of outcomes.

The real headline: The Trump administration is using legitimate questions about institutional waste as cover for ideological changes—one targeting educated professionals (who vote Democratic), one potentially destabilizing the post-WWII security architecture—while the opposition criticizes the changes without acknowledging they're attacking real problems, just proposing to solve them through institutional dismantling rather than reform. This is the actual story both sides are avoiding.