Thread: Trump says allies must start paying for ‘American protection’

Trump says allies must start paying for ‘American protection’


Donald Trump wants US allies to ante up if they want to continue under the “cloak of American protection,” according to his first detailed comments on his foreign-policy platform.

“We’re not being reimbursed for the kind of tremendous service that we’re performing by protecting various countries,” the Republican front-runner was quoted as saying.

Trump said he would boycott oil from Saudi Arabia and other allies *unless they provide troops or funds to fight ISIS.

“If Saudi Arabia was without the cloak of American protection . . . I don’t think it would be around,” he told The New York Times.

Trump is open to removing US forces from Japan and South Korea if they did not take on the cost of housing and feeding troops on American bases there, the report said.

He argued that it is getting expensive to keep “defending the world.”

“We defend everybody. When in doubt, come to the United States. We’ll defend you. In some cases free of charge,” he said.

Trump pushed back against suggestions his foreign policy was “isolationist.”
“I am ‘America First,’ ” he said. “I like the expression.”

He vowed to renegotiate the Iran deal to extend restrictions on the country’s ability to build nuclear weapons while also allowing Iran to buy planes and other goods made in the United States.

“We gave them $150 billion, and they can’t spend it in our country,” he said.
The United States, in Trump’s view, has lost power economically and militarily for decades. He cited the Teddy Roosevelt era as the period when America’s might peaked.

“We have been disrespected, mocked and ripped off for many, many years by people that were smarter, shrewder, tougher,” he said.

Trump vowed to restore the country’s role as a global superpower. He suggested the United States has acted like a “big bully” and was “not smartly led.”

A cornerstone of the Trump doctrine is his “unpredictability” in dealing with foreign leaders.

“I wouldn’t want them to know what my real thinking is,” he said. “I would use trade, absolutely, as a bargaining chip.”

He defended US surveillance of allies like Israel and Germany, saying, “They’re spying against us.”

Trump said he would allow Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear programs instead of depending on America for protection from China and North Korea.
He wouldn’t rule out using nuclear weapons against an adversary, saying he would use nukes as an “absolute last step.”

But Trump held out hope he could facilitate the greatest deal of them all — lasting peace in Israel.

“I would have a better chance than anybody of making a deal,” he said.




http://nypost.com/2016/03/26/fight-i...-saudi-arabia/

He's totally right about this. We've spent ourselves into such a hole defending all these other nations and being the world's policeman that our nation's continued existence is threatened. Just look at our national debt. We can't go on like this! If we continue like this, the USA will go the way of Rome, probably within our lifetimes. I don't' know about you, but I don't want my children, grand children and their children to live under some type of tyrannical dictatorship that will inevitably emerge if our Republic fails.

there is one thing to do to have a better America when Donald Trump he should come out from NATO it's not a good thing to fight with a Socialist Europe he will save money he'll stop wasting time with who don't like him

I support keeping NATO as does Trump. The media is misreporting, like always, but he definitely thinks its mission has changed since WWII post-period, and it has. He's absolutely right about that. The countries who may not have been able to contribute as much as they could then, should definitely contribute the bulk of the funds needed to have NATO now, slimmed down, stream-lined, restructured for current missions with modern methods. I don't know that much about the actual investments and bases, and I do believe we still need it, but agree totally for a revamp, change in funding mechanisms, members and missions to meet current needs and situations.

NATO is a mess and should never have been sustained after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The only real solution to NATO is to scrap it and form new treaties based on new realities. NATO's obligations are becoming more and more unstable and threaten to draw the US into a major catastrophe for which history will blame the US. We and Europe are now confronting the same threat that the Serbs faced in the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. When they took up arms to defend themselves, we accused them of genocide and laid waste to their cities and countryside. We killed thousands of people and ripped away their spiritual homeland in Kosovo, giving it to the Muslim narco-terrorists running it now. "We" being the US under the jurisdiction of NATO. NATO operates a military base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel and Serbs continue to be threatened and attacked with impunity by the Muslims running it now.

Look at the Ukraine now, if Ukraine had been a NATO member, we would certainly be on our way to WWIII with the Russians. We had a similar close call in Georgia, with aggression that the Georgians started against the Russians.

Originally Posted by Judy

I don't know that much about the actual investments and bases, and I do believe we still need it, but agree totally for a revamp, change in funding mechanisms, members and missions to meet current needs and situations.

if you think of possible WWIII you have not been in Central Europe and Nordic countries and see what are Europeans today you could never lift an army of civilians in a national impressment to serve their government in a war like the two previous worldwide wars there is a very few professional army and not ready at all to fight each others and civilians don't hold on them to make a mess of what's their individual life brought them by hard work and patient they actually made it but EU is today their struggle

a lot of people use to tell us there is war going Europe vs Russia but if Russia has no army in front Russia will not invade Europe so what is NATO for squashing tax money payers

an army it's to destroy other army not to invade

Donald Trump calls for Nato overhaul ahead of Nuclear Security Summit

TONI CLARKE Last updated 12:12, March 28 2016

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has doubled down on his criticism of NATO, a cornerstone of US foreign policy for decades, calling for the alliance's overhaul just days before world leaders convene in Washington.

President Barack Obama will host the Nuclear Security Summit on Thursday and Friday with 56 delegations in attendance. While preventing nuclear terrorism will headline the discussions, Trump's views could be a topic as well, particularly behind the scenes.

In another sharp departure from historic US policy, Trump said in an interview published on Sunday by The New York Times that he would consider letting Japan and South Korea build their own nuclear weapons, rather than rely on America for protection against North Korea and China.

"Nato is obsolete," Trump said on ABC's 'This Week' with George Stephanopoulos.

The 28-country North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was set up in a different era, Trump said, when the main threat to the West was the Soviet Union. It was ill-suited to fighting terrorism and costs the United States too much, he added.

"We should readjust Nato ... it can be trimmed up and it can be, uh, it can be reconfigured and you can call it Nato, but it's going to be changed," he said.

Last Monday, Trump said the United States should slash its financial support for Nato, which was formed in 1949 after World War II and became a bulwark against Soviet expansionism.

Russia will not attend the upcoming nuclear summit, but China's President Xi Jinping will.

Trump's chief rival for the Republican nomination, Texas Senator Ted Cruz called the real estate mogul's views on Nato "catastrophically foolish". Speaking on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Cruz said Trump was "out of his depth".

"Abandoning Europe, withdrawing from the most successful military alliance of modern times, it makes no sense at all," Cruz said.

Cruz said if he were elected president, his approach to Islamic State would be to "carpet bomb them into oblivion"

Donald Trump calls for Nato overhaul ahead of Nuclear Security Summit | Stuff.co.nz

Originally Posted by Judy

I support keeping NATO as does Trump. The media is misreporting, like always, but he definitely thinks its mission has changed since WWII post-period, and it has. He's absolutely right about that. The countries who may not have been able to contribute as much as they could then, should definitely contribute the bulk of the funds needed to have NATO now, slimmed down, stream-lined, restructured for current missions with modern methods. I don't know that much about the actual investments and bases, and I do believe we still need it, but agree totally for a revamp, change in funding mechanisms, members and missions to meet current needs and situations.

Memo to neocons and Establishment GOP: The Cold War ended in 1989. Maybe it's time to make some changes.