Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has said he wants to fix America’s problems before he tackles the issues facing other countries, and suggested stipulating conditions to the U.S. fulfilling its commitment to NATO allies.
The GOP candidate’s remarks made to The New York Times about refashioning American relationship with NATO could create confusion in Europe, which is facing a raft of new security challenges.
During a 45-minute interview with the Times, he “explicitly raised new questions about his commitment to automatically defend NATO allies if they are attacked, saying he would first look at their contributions to the alliance,” the Times reported.
Trump spoke about his America First foreign policy approach with the Times in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention , underscoring his plans to make the U.S. stronger by, for example, forcing allies to pay for their own defenses instead of the U.S. footing much of the bill.
He also vaguely explained that his “America First” policy is not the same isolationist view, dating back before World War II but a new idea.
“To me, ‘America First’ is a brand-new, modern term,” Trump told the Times, saying he never related it to past.
“We are going to take care of this country first before we worry about everyone else in the world.”
He called for forcing allies to commit to paying defense costs the United States has shouldered for decades, reviewing longstanding treaties he deems unfavorable and redefining U.S. partnerships.
Other countries would adjust, he argued.
“I think right now when it comes to civil liberties, our country has a lot of problems, and I think it’s very hard for us to get involved in other countries when we don’t know what we are doing and we can’t see straight in our own country,” he said.
“Just look about what’s happening with our country. How are we going to lecture when people are shooting our policemen in cold blood. How are we going to lecture when you see the riots and the horror going on in our own country.”
Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign pounced on Trump’s comments Thursday morning, saying Trump is “temperamentally unfit and fundamentally ill-prepared to be our commander in chief.”
“For decades, the United States has given an ironclad guarantee to our NATO allies: We will come to their defence if they are attacked, just as they came to our defense after 9/11. Donald Trump was asked if he would honor that guarantee. He said … maybe, maybe not,” Senior Policy Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement. “The president is supposed to be the leader of the free world. Donald Trump apparently doesn’t even believe in the free world.”
Regarding the situation in Turkey, where government forces foiled an attempted military coup last week, Trump lauded Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“I give great credit to him for being able to turn that around,” Trump said. “Some people say that it was staged, you know that. I don’t think so.”
