Representatives of the Democratic Party in the USA appealed to Congress to take new steps to protect NATO from Donald Trump and his actions and statements.
The former president’s comments that he would not defend individual NATO members if Russia attacked them continue to cause a lot of public attention, and announcements that Trump could withdraw the US from NATO membership if he were to become president again instill additional fear.
“We should all be scared to death. Anyone who cares about American leadership, who cares about protecting democracy, anyone who wants to fight authoritarians around the world should be scared to death that Donald Trump is telling us that he will sacrifice NATO allies ” said center Chris Van Hollen.
Former Pentagon official Jim Townsend is also worried about the potential scenarios if Trump were to come to power.
“He could reduce our participation. He will not go to the summits, and the Minister of Defense will not go to the ministerial meetings. There will not be many American faces there,” he explained.
Senator Richard Blumenthal said that he is terrified by the fact that Trump could reduce the US presence in NATO.
“I am petrified by the announcements that Donald Trump may cut funding or otherwise withdraw US support for NATO. I think that is catastrophic. There are potential measures we can take and we should start exploring them now while we still have unity of support. for NATO,” he emphasized.
Kristine Berzina, a NATO expert at the German Marshall Fund, said that if Trump gets creative, he can do a lot of damage.
“If Trump refuses to send an ambassador to NATO, or if he sends a representative who is more interested in a fight than a consensus, I think we could see something similar to what we are seeing now in Congress. For the US to be in NATO, they have to be active or they will be in otherwise become a coma,” she said.
A little earlier, Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton believed that the former US president, if he won the election, would try to withdraw America from NATO.
“NATO would be in real danger. I think he would try to get out,” Bolton said, according to CNN.
