“John Bolton Is Certain Trump Really Wants to Blow Up NATO”; at least, according to a Politico headline.
Politico recently interviewed Trump’s uber-hawkish former national security adviser, which appears as part of a campaign to drum up some sales for his 2020 Trump White House memoir titled The Room Where It Happened—now with a new foreword!
“We have been telling NATO allies for decades that they had to increase their defense spending. And those of us who have been doing this for a long time have done it to strengthen NATO so that the U.S. can be more flexible around the world,” Bolton told Politico. “When Trump complains that NATO allies are not spending enough on defense, he’s not complaining to get them to strengthen NATO. He’s using it to bolster his excuse to get out.”
At a recent rally in South Carolina, Trump said “NATO was busted until I came along.”
When Trump entered office, “I said, ‘Everybody’s gonna pay.’ They said, ‘Well, if we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ They couldn’t believe the answer.”
One unnamed European president, according to Trump, asked the then-president if the U.S. would defend their country if they didn’t pay. Trump claimed he replied, “No, I would not protect you.”
“In fact, I would encourage [the Russians] to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.”
Trump is a New Yorker, and that kind of talk is quintessentially New York. He’s busting their chops. Of course, this kind of talk is completely lost on smarmy European centrists. Nevertheless, it worked. Almost every NATO country increased their defense expenditures over Trump’s tenure. But don’t just take my word for it. More Bolton:
The commitment that all this turns on — at the NATO summit at Cardiff, Wales, in 2014 — was that over a 10-year period, all NATO members would end up spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product or more on defense, and that hasn’t happened. Spending has increased in recent years. And a good part of the reason for that is Trump.
Yet, Bolton says Trump’s effort to get NATO countries to pay up is “to lay the groundwork to get out.” What Bolton is really doing here is telling NATO partners across the Atlantic to avoid increasing defense expenditures in an attempt to “keep the Americans in,” as Lord Ismay once observed. If Trump becomes president again, there will be scores of Bolton types—left, right, and center—doing the same exact thing.
But ask any New Yorker, especially any involved in real estate—eventually, all bills come due, and someone comes to collect.
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