The United States will “never come to help if Europe is attacked.” That is what then American President Donald Trump is said to have said to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in early 2020. “And by the way: NATO is dead.”
If we can believe European Commissioner Thierry Breton, the private meeting between Trump and Von der Leyen at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 21, 2020 did not exactly go smoothly. According to the Frenchman, Trump, who was still American president at the time, told Von der Leyen that the United States would “never come to help if Europe was attacked.” “And by the way: NATO is dead,” Trump added. “We will leave, the United States will leave NATO.”
According to other sources, Trump added that Germany still owed the US $400 billion. “Because you didn’t pay what you were supposed to pay for defense.”
Breton made the statement in the run-up to Monday, January 15, the day on which the first Republican primary for the presidential election takes place in the American state of Iowa and where it looks like Trump will win easily. “Let his statements be a big wake-up call. He might come back. This makes us know more than ever that we are on our own. Almost all of us are members of NATO and of course we have allies, but at the same time we have no choice but to drastically increase our defense spending and be ready for whatever happens.”
The Trump camp has not yet responded to Breton’s statements.
Thierry Breton. — © REUTERS