© Reuters. Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as he holds a marketing campaign rally at Coastal Carolina College forward of the South Carolina Republican presidential main in Conway, South Carolina, U.S., February 10, 2024. REU
By Andrea Shalal
WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) -The White Home on Saturday rejected feedback made by former U.S. President Donald Trump about not defending NATO allies from a possible Russian invasion as “appalling and unhinged.”
Trump, showing to recount a gathering with NATO leaders throughout a political rally in South Carolina on Saturday, quoted the president of “a big country” that he didn’t identify as asking, “Well sir if we don’t pay, and we’re attacked by Russia – will you protect us?”
“I said: ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’ He said: ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’ No I would not protect you. In fact I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay.”
White Home spokesperson Andrew Bates, requested about Trump’s feedback, stated, “Encouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes is appalling and unhinged – and it endangers American national security, global stability and our economy at home.”
The NATO treaty comprises a provision that ensures mutual protection of member states if one is attacked.
Trump, frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, was a fierce critic of the North Atlantic Treaty Group when he was president, repeatedly threatening to tug out of the alliance. He lower protection funding to NATO and regularly complained that america was paying greater than its fair proportion.
Bates stated President Joe Biden, a Democrat searching for reelection within the November election, had restored U.S. alliances after taking workplace in 2021, guaranteeing that NATO was now “the largest and most vital it has ever been.”
“Rather than calling for wars and promoting deranged chaos, President Biden will continue to bolster American leadership and stand up for our national security interests – not against them,” he said in a statement issued late Saturday.
With Trump leading Biden in some polls, European allies worry a Trump victory in November could jeopardize the U.S. commitment to the alliance, but NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg last month said he did not think a second Trump presidency would jeopardize U.S. membership.
Stoltenberg, who has been pushing member states to boost defense spending, said European allies were increasing their military contributions and “transferring in the correct path.”
Trump has continued to hammer the transatlantic alliance, telling a marketing campaign rally final month that he didn’t consider NATO international locations would help america if it had been attacked.
On Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, Trump has referred to as for de-escalation and complained in regards to the billions spent thus far, though he has put ahead few tangible coverage proposals.
Since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, U.S. help to Ukraine has totaled round $75 billion, Stoltenberg stated, whereas different NATO members and associate states mixed have offered greater than $100 billion.