{"id":41571,"date":"2024-02-11T05:53:19","date_gmt":"2024-02-11T05:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=41571"},"modified":"2026-07-05T16:40:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T16:40:42","slug":"donald-trump-says-he-would-encourage-russia-to-attack-nato-allies-who-pay-too-little","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2024\/02\/11\/donald-trump-says-he-would-encourage-russia-to-attack-nato-allies-who-pay-too-little\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump says he would encourage Russia to attack Nato allies who pay too little"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Seeking a second presidency as the Republicans\u2019 presumptive 2024 White House nominee,\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0has said he would \u201cencourage\u201d Russia to attack any of the US\u2019s Nato allies whom he considers to have not met their financial obligations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House described the remarks as \u201cappalling and unhinged\u201d. Trump made the statement on Saturday during a campaign rally in Conway, South Carolina, ahead of the state\u2019s Republican presidential preference primary on 24 February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former president has voiced misgivings about aid to Ukraine as it defends itself from the invasion launched by Russia in February 2022 \u2013 as well as to the existence of\u00a0Nato, the 31-nation alliance which the US has committed to defending when necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On Saturday, Trump claimed that during an unspecified\u00a0Nato\u00a0meeting he told a fellow head of state that the US under his leadership would not defend any countries who were \u201cdelinquent\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, \u2018Well, sir, if we don\u2019t pay, and we\u2019re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?\u2019\u201d Trump said, adding \u201cI said, \u2018You didn\u2019t pay, you\u2019re delinquent?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates, asked about Trump\u2019s comments, said, \u201cencouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes is appalling and unhinged \u2013 and it endangers American national security, global stability and our economy at home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/851ba06a9fd2318db431529e4cace52c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com\/safeframe\/1-0-40\/html\/container.html\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nato countries agreed in 2014, after Russia annexed Ukraine\u2019s Crimean peninsula, to halt the spending cuts they had made after the cold war and move toward spending 2% of their GDPs on defense by 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his 2016 campaign, Trump alarmed western allies by warning that the United States, under his leadership, might abandon its Nato treaty commitments and only come to the defence of countries that meet the alliance\u2019s 2% target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of 2022, Nato reported that seven of what are now 31 Nato member countries were meeting that obligation \u2013 up from three in 2014. Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has spurred additional military spending by some Nato members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s comments come as Ukraine remains mired in its efforts to stave off Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion and as Republicans in Congress have become increasingly skeptical of providing additional aid to the country as it struggles with stalled counteroffensives and weapons shortfalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s remarks on Saturday quickly raised alarm among many political pundits in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSounds as if Trump is kind of encouraging Russia to attack our Nato allies,\u201d\u00a0David Corn\u00a0\u2013 an MSNBC analyst and the Washington DC bureau chief of Mother Jones \u2013 said on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, conservative political commentator\u00a0Alyssa Farah Griffin\u00a0said Trump\u2019s comments were \u201cmusic\u201d to the ears of Russian leader Vladimir Putin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Saturday, the former president also celebrated the recent collapse of\u00a0congressional legislationaiming to address the migration crisis on the US-Mexico border. The legislation was supported by Democratic incumbent Joe Biden, and Trump vowed that \u2013 if elected again \u2013 he would carry out \u201ca massive deporation operation\u201d on his first day back in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has been performing strongly in public opinion polls against\u00a0Biden, who defeated the ex-president in the 2020 election. Nonetheless, he is grappling with more than 90 criminal charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The charges contained in four separate indictments across various jurisdictions allege that he tried to subvert the result of the election he lost, illegally retained government secrets after his presidency, and made illicit hush-money payments to a porn actor who claims to have had a sexual encounter with Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seeking a second presidency as the Republicans\u2019 presumptive 2024 White House nominee,\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0has said he would \u201cencourage\u201d Russia to attack any of the US\u2019s Nato allies whom he considers to have not met their financial obligations. The White House described the remarks as \u201cappalling and unhinged\u201d. Trump made the statement on Saturday during a campaign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":41572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10618,6850,6728,5304,5178,9204,10387,9194,7711,5341,9233,6693,10000,9088,8440,913,5196,911,9127,2264,7261,9997,1444,5252,2471,5139,9974,10634,9833,1510,65,5572,5612,5058,7693,4802,11804,11973,13257,7574,3805,11377,71,5333,6944,6575,3457,5217,5655,10838,5180,9262,184,6348,11565,694,5251,2354,10134,5724,6571,2982,594,10353],"class_list":["post-41571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-actor","tag-aid","tag-alliance","tag-attack","tag-biden","tag-border","tag-campaign","tag-charges","tag-cold","tag-cold-war","tag-collapse","tag-congress","tag-conservative","tag-container","tag-crisis","tag-democratic","tag-economy","tag-election","tag-february","tag-government","tag-griffin","tag-guilty","tag-hell","tag-invasion","tag-joe-biden","tag-jones","tag-leadership","tag-lost","tag-meeting","tag-mexico","tag-migration","tag-military","tag-money","tag-music","tag-national-security","tag-nato","tag-not-guilty","tag-one","tag-porn","tag-presidency","tag-president","tag-presidential","tag-putin","tag-rally","tag-republican","tag-republicans","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-security","tag-south-carolina","tag-ukraine","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-president-donald-john-trump-jr","tag-us","tag-us-mexico-border","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-war","tag-washington","tag-washington-dc","tag-weapons","tag-white","tag-white-house","tag-who","tag-x"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41573,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41571\/revisions\/41573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}