CNN reporter Jim Sciutto said he spoke with several former advisors to Donald Trump for his book The Return of Great Powers, which will be released on March 12. “A former senior US official, who served at high levels in both the Trump and Biden administrations, told me that if Trump defeats President Joe Biden in November, ‘the US will leave NATO’.”
John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, said that “NATO would be in real danger.” “I think he would try to get out,” Bolton reportedly stated.
“Without NATO, Putin wouldn’t do this”
According to John Kelly, White House chief of staff under Trump, the former president saw “absolutely no use for NATO.” Kelly is quoted as saying in the book that Trump also “disdained” defense agreements with South Korea and Japan. “He was simply against” having troops in South Korea or Japan, even though that is “a deterrent force.”
“He thought Putin was a good guy and Kim was a good guy, that we had pushed North Korea into a corner,” Kelly said. “To him it was like we were challenging these guys. ‘If we didn’t have NATO, Putin wouldn’t be doing these things.’”
Senior members of the administration are said to have detailed to the CNN reporter how Trump almost withdrew the US from the alliance at a summit in Brussels in 2018 during his first term, “and warned that he would likely go further in a second term.” ”.
“A former senior U.S. official told me that Trump directed then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to withdraw the U.S. from NATO” in 2018, Sciutto said. “Although strongly opposed, they viewed the president’s order as a ‘lawful order’ and drew up plans to carry out the withdrawal.”
The 2018 NATO summit was “really scary because we didn’t know what he was going to do until the last minute,” Bolton said. “And I mean, I think he pretty much said he was going to leave NATO and then backtracked.”
According to Bolton, Ukraine and Taiwan should also be “very concerned” about a new Trump presidency, which could end his support for both countries. “US support for Ukraine would end,” the senior official who served in the Trump and Biden administration reportedly said firmly.
“NATO is dead”
Trump has caused a stir in recent days by saying he would encourage Russia to “do whatever it wants” with NATO member states that do not contribute enough.
In 2020, the then American president reportedly told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that the US “will never come to help if Europe is attacked”. “And by the way: NATO is dead. We will leave, the United States will leave NATO.”
READ ALSO. Donald Trump told Ursula von der Leyen that US would “never help if Europe was attacked”: “NATO is dead”