Trump hedges on NATO protection against Russian aggression

“If conditions get worse, and Trump does not thrive, I’m sure that Ted Cruz will be around to say, ‘Told you so, let me do the managing”. He said that the USA action would depend on whether or not the country “fulfilled their obligations to us”.

“The US security commitment to our NATO Allies, as enshrined in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, is ironclad”.

Yet, people throughout Eastern Europe expressed deep concern.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s suggestion that the United States might abandon its NATO treaty commitments has upended decades of American foreign policy dogma and doctrine in both parties.

Beyond Nato, the message to Asia, and to USA partners in the Gulf who have no alliance treaty with the U.S., is that they will be less secure and will have to rely less on Washington.

“I guess that means that there is some irony associated with the case that’s being made by the Republican nominee at this point”, he said.

If elected, Trump could unilaterally terminate NAFTA or any other free trade deal, although a court would likely have to decide if the president had that authority, said Gary Hufbauer, a former deputy assistant secretary for trade at the Treasury Department. The Kremlin is spending $314 billion (20 trillion rubles) on an ambitious defense upgrade through 2020, while NATO’s plans involve rotating four battalions through the region. In an interview with Foreign Policy on Thursday, the Latvian ambassador to the United States, Andris Razāns, touted the fact that while his country has not yet reached the 2 percent defense spending threshold, “we have, by law, committed to have this 2 percent in 2018”. Almost half say the USA should “stay out” of world affairs, according to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

A bitter foe within Trumps own party, Sen. “The President is supposed to be the leader of the free world”, senior Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. I have little doubt that Trump can pull it off. House Speaker Paul Ryan immediately distanced himself from Trump’s remarks, and leading Republican donors jumped in with criticism as well.

Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves pointed to his country’s role in the war in Afghanistan as proof of the country’s commitment, sharing on Twitter a message that said Estonia had one of the highest casualty rates per capita in the conflict.

“Regardless of who will be the president of America, we will trust in America”, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite told reporters in Vilnius. If found lacking, the nation in need may be at risk for defending itself.

Stoltenberg acknowledged that the United States was “stepping up its support” for European allies “and increasing its presence”. “That doesn’t sound very smart to me”. “I’m saying, right now there are many countries that have not fulfilled their obligations to us”. It would depend, he said, on whether he thought those countries had earned USA protection by keeping up their end of the bargain. This he said while responding to a question about potential Russian aggression against the Baltic States. Instead, the platform amendment pledged to offer only “appropriate assistance”. The only time Article 5 has been invoked was after the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, and is the reason why European and Canadian troops were sent to Afghanistan.

“If Trump doubts North Atlantic Treaty Organisation solidarity in the case of Article 5, then his election is risky for Baltic security”, Artis Pabriks, a former Latvian foreign and defense minister who’s now a member of the European Parliament, said on Twitter. “It’s too much, and frankly it’s a different world than it was when we originally conceived of the idea”. He has purged tens of thousands of others, declared a three month “state of emergency” and partially suspended the European Convention on Human Rights.