Press
Donald Trump is critical of NATO. In an interview with the British TV channel GB News, he changes his tone.
London/Washington, DC – Donald Trump is a proven critic of the NATO. During his term as US President, he repeatedly openly threatened to withdraw USA from the alliance. And his former security advisor John Bolton likes to point out the sentence, which Trump is said to have once said to him: “I don’t give a shit about NATO.”
Now Trump is no longer in office, but is in the middle of the election campaign. However, his rhetoric has not changed, quite the opposite. In February he ensured republican with a Statement about NATO at an election campaign event for excitement, not just in Europe. Trump said he would not provide any protection to NATO partners who did not meet their financial obligations Russia grant. What's more, he would “even encourage Russia to do whatever the hell they want.”
Donald Trump relativizes statements about NATO
Now Trump has made his statement in an interview with the right-wing British broadcaster GB News relativized. Moderator and Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage wanted to know whether America would stay in NATO if the other member states “played fairly”. Trump's answer: “Yes, 100 percent.”
However, European countries should not take advantage of American support, Trump said. “The United States should pay its fair share, not everyone else's.” One should not forget that NATO is more important for Europe than for the USA, because there is an ocean, “a beautiful, big, wonderful ocean” between them USA and “some problems” in Europe.
At the same time, Trump described his statements about NATO as mere negotiating tactics. “What I’m saying is a way of negotiating. Why should we protect these countries that have a lot of money while the US pays most of it for NATO?”
Trump is committed to NATO quotas – just like Obama before him
Trump is not the first US president to accuse the Europeans of insufficient defense spending. At the 2014 NATO summit, it was primarily the then Democratic President Barack Obama who advocated the two percent target. According to NATO information, around 20 of the current 31 allies will probably adhere to the so-called NATO quota this year and spend at least two percent of their gross domestic product on defense. According to diplomats in Brussels, Germany is at around 2.1 percent for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
If Trump wins the election, the allies are not only worried about the future of NATO, but also about US support for it Ukraine. The Republican boasts about it Ukraine war to finish on his first day in office. In an interview with GB News he reiterated that he was in a position to speak with the Russian president Wladimir Putin to negotiate. “I got along great with Putin,” he said. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. (cs/dpa/afp)
#Trump #USA #NATO #condition