Trump told The New York Times that he would review allies’ financial contributions before acting under NATO’s mutual defense clause, if any of the countries were attacked by Russian Federation.
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“If I were a US citizen, I would never, ever vote for Trump. Then yes, I would be absolutely prepared to tell those countries, ‘Congratulations, you will be defending yourself'”. In other words, he sees this, and the United States see this, as an opportunity to have more of a role on the world stage, and I really agree with him.
NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a military alliance of European and North American democracies created after World War II to strengthen global cooperation as a counter-balance to the rise of the Soviet Union.
Trump’s comments prompted an outcry from politicians and policy experts on both sides of the aisle, who warned that the USA couldn’t go back on its word.
At nearly the exact same time on Wednesday evening that Mike Pence declared to Republican voters that Donald Trump will “stand with our allies”, the New York Times published a recent interview with the GOP nominee in which he indicated that, as president, he would not necessarily abide by America’s treaty obligations should a member of NATO come under attack.
The seasoned lawmaker also offered the expected paeans to NATO: The U.S. will fulfill its promise to defend the alliance’s members the way they’ve helped Washington go after the perpetrators of September 11; the group has a storied and successful history. “Donald Trump apparently doesn’t even believe in the free world”, Clinton senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement shortly after the interview was published.
US Ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush, John Bolton: “When an American leader says ‘I’ll look at what the situation is after the Russians attack, ‘ that is an open invitation to Vladimir Putin”.
Donald Trump’s eye-popping declaration that the United States may not be automatically bound by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation pledge to consider an attack on one country to be an attack on all is reverberating around the world.
But he left it unclear whether his father might break treaty commitments to allies that fail to pay their share for defense. “We might not abide by the central tenant of the most important alliance in the history of the world”.
A bitter foe within Trump’s own party, Senator Lindsey Graham of SC, said: ‘I’m 100 per cent certain how Russian President (Vladimir) Putin feels – he’s a very happy man’. Fears of Russian aggression have run high since it annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea. The deterrent effect of the deployments was likely to stay just as powerful in a Trump presidency, the official said.
“The world’s too compacted and too unsafe for the United States to act in an isolated way”, he later added. Harry Truman would be ashamed.
‘My hope is that if Donald is elected president, we can convince him to change his mind on it, ‘ said Senator Marco Rubio, a former primary opponent who now supports Trump.
American security analysts on both sides of the political spectrum roundly criticized Trump’s remarks.
This year, the Republican nominee said it wouldn’t be so bad if Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia obtained nuclear weapons of their own, saying that nuclear proliferation would “happen anyway”.
Donald Trump says the Cleveland police are doing “an incredible job”.
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In sum, even before leaving Cleveland, Trump has set off an worldwide furor, shed doubt on his competency and proved Hillary Clinton correct: He is too unsafe, erratic and ignorant to be president.
