Donald Trump said in an interview with Brexit leader Nigel Farage that NATO allies rely on US taxpayers for protection but refuse to pay their “fair share”. , accused the United States of “taking advantage” of its generosity.
The former president and leading Republican candidate in this year’s presidential election last month suggested that he might not respect Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which requires all signatories to defend another country, prompting international establishment media and This angered globalist politicians. they come under attack.
Trump told a story of an interrupted conversation with an unnamed European leader while campaigning in South Carolina, telling him that if he failed to meet his NATO spending obligations, he would not let American soldiers die in their place. “That’s what I would do,” he joked. Under such a scenario, it would even “encourage” Russia to do “whatever they want.”
Although NATO insiders understood the comment to be a warning, the comment was interpreted in traditional media as an attack on the NATO alliance itself. Addressing the media uproar, the former president told Nigel Farage: interview GB News: “What I’m saying is kind of a negotiation. Why do we need to protect these countries where we have a lot of money? [while] Was America paying most of NATO’s costs?I already had it with them when I went there [in the past].
“Then they stopped paying again. But now they’re paying because of comments they saw a couple of weeks ago. [from me]. I don’t know if you know, but a lot of money has come in since these comments were made. ”
“Billions of dollars poured in after we got the message across: ‘If you don’t pay your bills, we’re not going to protect you,'” Trump said.
“NATO is stronger because of me. Now NATO has to treat America fairly, because without America NATO wouldn’t even exist. Like most countries. , they took advantage of us,” he explained.
“Why should we protect countries where we have a lot of money?”
Donald Trump has said the US will remain in NATO if it wins the polls and member countries pay their fair share.
clock @Nigel_FarageThe full interview will be broadcast tonight from 7pm only on GB News. pic.twitter.com/Si5eDbTjs6
— GB News (@GBNEWS) March 19, 2024
President Trump has criticized NATO members for not paying their dues to the alliance, especially wealthy countries like Germany that rely on American taxpayers and spend their wealth on lavish welfare and health care systems, as well as on asylum seekers. The government has long criticized the government for choosing to use the money to provide benefits to people affected by the virus. Pay for their defense. In 2018, for example, then-President Trump accused Germany and others of asking Putin for U.S. protection and of being “captived” by Russia by paying billions of dollars to Moscow in exchange for natural gas.
“NATO wasn’t paying. I went to the first meeting early in the administration, saw what was going on, and said, ‘You guys have to pay your bills.’ And in our second meeting, I grilled them,” Trump told Farage.
President Trump’s tough rhetoric against European allies was then, as now, treated by establishment media as a threat to the alliance itself, as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in 2019: credited The president’s tough stance is a key element in securing an additional $100 billion in NATO spending from European countries and Canada.
More recently, Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of the British intelligence agency MI6 (roughly equivalent to the CIA), praised President Trump’s stance on NATO, saying in an interview last week: , especially the Germans. If the Germans really started spending in earnest on rearmament – which they should, given the size of their economy – it would be a complete transformation. ”
“This was the most unfair thing to do, but remember, it’s more important to them than it is to us,” Trump said in an interview with Brexiteers. There is an ocean between some issues…they will take advantage of it. They used us in trade and they used us in the military. ”
But the former president and future presidential candidate said the United States would protect them “100 percent” if countries paid their fair share.
European leaders and Trump comment on NATO: “Serious but not literal”: Times of Londonhttps://t.co/Ih5tLMidsI
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 12, 2024
