Freakout

Trump's remarks on NATO set off freakout

The Republican nominee suggests the U.S. should only defend NATO allies if they've paid their bills.

By Nahal Toosi

Donald Trump's suggestion that the U.S. shouldn't automatically come to the defense of its NATO allies if they are attacked is already alarming longstanding American allies — and is likely to please U.S. rival Russia.

“Solidarity among allies is a key value for NATO," the military alliance's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, told BuzzFeed News as word filtered out of Trump's latest comments, delivered in a lengthy interview with the New York Times. "This is good for European security and good for U.S. security. We defend one another.”

Trump’s interview was just the latest bombshell the Republican nominee has dropped on the world, as he offers a fundamentally different view of how the U.S. should engage with the world — one that is defined in purely economic terms.

Trump has long questioned whether other NATO states were carrying their share of the financial and military burdens that come with the alliance. And in the interview ahead of his speech Thursday night at the Republican National Convention, Trump suggested that if he became president the U.S. would only come to the assistance of a member state under attack if it “has fulfilled their obligations to us.”

That approach flies in the face of one of NATO's bedrock principles, Article 5, which lays out that an attack on one member amounts to an attack on all members, and that fellow NATO states must help the one that was struck. Such a provision is especially important to smaller members of NATO, such as the Baltic States, who in recent years have begun to fear Russia's military aims.

While the Baltic States — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania —are among NATO's newer members, his comments nonetheless prompted hand-wringing among officials and experts alike.

Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the president of Estonia, tweeted his dismay early Thursday, saying, "Estonia is 1 of 5 NATO allies in Europe to meet its 2% def expenditures commitment. Fought, with no caveats, in NATO's sole Art 5 op. in Afg."

He added, "We are equally committed to a l l our NATO allies, regardless of who they may be. That's what makes them allies."

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on Twitter that questions "of US reliability could trigger more conflict, appeasement, &/or more proliferation as allies seek self-reliance."

And Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, tweeted: "We have had decades of bipartisan commitment to NATO, which has made it the greatest alliance in history. Trump is now threatening that."

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign put out a statement invoking Republican darling Ronald Reagan to blast Trump.

"Ronald Reagan would be ashamed. Harry Truman would be ashamed. Republicans, Democrats and Independents who help build NATO into the most successful military alliance in history would all come to the same conclusion: Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit and fundamentally ill-prepared to be our commander in chief," Clinton senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan said in the statement.

The Clinton team in particular pointed out that Trump's statements appear to be exactly what Russian President Vladimir Putin would want to hear. Putin has long felt somewhat threatened by NATO's presence, especially as former Soviet states have sought to join the alliance.

Trump has been highly complimentary toward Putin. The Republican's team was said to have pressured the party's platform-writing committee to remove references about the U.S. coming to the aid of Ukraine, a former Soviet country that Russia invaded in 2014 and has been locked in a battle over territory with since.

As the world began reacting to Trump's comments, his vice presidential pick, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, defended him.

“I have every confidence that Donald Trump will see to it that the United States of America stands by our allies and lives up to our treaty obligations," Pence told "Fox and Friends" on Thursday morning. "That being said, I think he makes an enormously important point that I think resonates with millions of Americans that at a time where we have $19 trillion in national debt, that we need to begin to look to our allies around the world to step up and pay their fair share.”

But the Clinton team was all too happy to point out the daylight between Trump and Pence, as the former secretary of state gears up to announce her own choice of running mate.

“Tonight, Mike Pence said Donald Trump would stand with our allies. Tonight, Donald Trump flatly contradicted him," Sullivan said.