WaPo | “At what point do you say, ‘Hey, we have to take care of
ourselves?’ ” Trump said in the editorial board meeting. “I know the
outer world exists, and I’ll be very cognizant of that. But at the same
time, our country is disintegrating, large sections of it, especially
the inner cities.”
Trump said U.S. involvement in NATO may need
to be significantly diminished in the coming years, breaking with nearly
seven decades of consensus in Washington. “We certainly can’t afford to
do this anymore,” he said, adding later, “NATO is costing us a fortune,
and yes, we’re protecting Europe with NATO, but we’re spending a lot of
money.”
Trump praised George P. Shultz, who served as President Ronald
Reagan’s secretary of state, as a model diplomat and, on the subject of
Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, said America’s allies are “not doing
anything.”
“Ukraine is a country that affects us far less than it
affects other countries in NATO, and yet we’re doing all of the
lifting,” Trump said. “They’re not doing anything. And I say: ‘Why is it
that Germany’s not dealing with NATO on Ukraine? . . . Why are we
always the one that’s leading, potentially, the third world war with
Russia?’ ”
While the Obama administration has faced pressure from
congressional critics who have advocated for a more active U.S. role in
supporting Ukraine, the U.S. military has limited its assistance to
nonlethal equipment such as vehicles and night-vision gear. European
nations have taken the lead in crafting a fragile cease-fire designed to
decrease hostility between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed
separatists.
Trump sounded a similar note in discussing the U.S.
presence in the Pacific. He questioned the value of massive military
investments in Asia and wondered aloud whether the United States still
is capable of being an effective peacekeeping force there.
“South
Korea is very rich, great industrial country, and yet we’re not
reimbursed fairly for what we do,” Trump said. “We’re constantly sending
our ships, sending our planes, doing our war games — we’re reimbursed a
fraction of what this is all costing.”
Such talk is likely to
trigger anxiety in South Korea, where a U.S. force of 28,000 has
provided a strong deterrent to North Korean threats for decades.
Asked
whether the United States benefits from its involvement in Asia, Trump
replied, “Personally, I don’t think so.” He added: “I think we were a
very powerful, very wealthy country. And we’re a poor country now. We’re
a debtor nation.”
