Donald Trump indicated he intends to pull the United States out of the Nato alliance, because they “weren’t there for us” during his war in Iran.
He said the decision would save the US hundreds of millions of dollars it would otherwise have spent protecting other countries, musing: “We would always have been there for them, and now based on their actions, I guess we don’t have to be, do we?”
The NATO alliance’s fundamental basis is the pledge that member states would respond with assistance to any member state under attack.
Trump has repeatedly complained that allies have ignored or rejected requests for help confronting Tehran’s retaliation, including its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway that has disrupted oil shipments and pushed up energy prices.
He made the latest remarks during a speech to an investment summit in Miami, Florida. After his lengthy remarks, Trump was asked by the host what he considered to be the biggest mistake by world leaders today.
“Not sticking together,” he said. “I think that NATO made a terrible mistake. When they wouldn’t send a small amount of military armament, when they wouldn’t just acknowledge what we were doing for the world in taking on Iran. I never considered it very risky, but war is always risk. Things happen in war that are very bad but…we have the best military by far in the world, nobody close, I didn’t think there was a big risk. But there’s always surprises with war. There can be very bad surprises. Wars are lost that should be won. You think a country is going to wipe somebody out and they get wiped out themselves, so it’s always risky.
He went on: “But I think a tremendous mistake was when NATO just wasn’t there. They just weren’t there. It’s going to make a lot of money for the United States, because we spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on NATO, protecting them. And we would always have been there for them. And now based on their actions, I guess we don’t have to be, do we?”
He turned to someone in the audience, and said: “That sounds like a breaking story…is that breaking news? I think that’s breaking news. But that’s the fact. I’ve been saying that. Why would we be there for them if they’re not there for us? They weren’t there for us.”
Related video