“If he pays his bills, absolutely,” Trump answered, according to NBC, when asked if he would be willing to maintain the current role of the United States in NATO.
Trump, who met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Saturday, also said in the interview that he is actively trying to end the war in Ukraine “if he can,” adding that Ukraine “maybe” can expect that when he returns to the White House, he will not receive as much military aid from the US.
🇺🇸🇺🇦 Trump, in an NBC News interview, suggested that Ukraine might see reduced military aid when he returns to the White House. He vowed to work towards ending the war in Ukraine and mentioned that the US might reconsider its NATO involvement if other members don’t increase… pic.twitter.com/WSjpgTAQSU
— Global News Feed (@GlobalNewsTime) December 8, 2024
The next American president also said in an interview that on his first day in office he intends to pardon those convicted by American courts for the attack on the Congress building on January 6, 2021. He also promised to deport all migrants who are in the United States without permission. Trump will assume the presidency on January 20, 2025.
The world has gone crazy, Trump said before the meeting with Macron and Zelensky
Europe
The return of a long-time critic of the Alliance
During this year’s meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Trump already said before the elections that he does not intend to financially support Ukraine if he is elected. In February, he also said that if the NATO countries do not give enough money for defense and Russia attacks them, the USA will not come to their aid under his leadership.
In the campaign, he also declared that he would resolve the conflict in Ukraine as the elected president even before the inauguration, but he did not explain how he envisioned it. In March, he also said that sending weapons and money to the Ukrainian military “is not a vital US strategic national interest.”
However, Trump has long been showing skepticism about American involvement in NATO. Already in 2000, in his book “The America We Deserve”, he wrote that “withdrawing from Europe would save the country millions of dollars annually”.
In 2018, as president, he questioned the key article five of the treaty on joint defense when he asked whether the US should participate in the defense of a small state like Montenegro, which is thousands of kilometers away. He also criticized then that the European partners from the alliance do not fulfill their obligation to spend at least two percent of their GDP on defense.
Scholz thinks that it is possible to agree on a strategy for Ukraine with Trump
War in Ukraine
