Republicans rip Trump over NATO plan – POLITICO

Donald Trump has long questioned whether other NATO states were carrying their share of the financial and military burdens that come with the alliance.

One GOP lawmaker tells POLITICO, 'Comments like this are not only ill-informed, theyre dangerous.'

By Nahal Toosi

07/21/16 07:56 AM EDT

Updated 07/21/16 03:30 PM EDT

Donald Trump's latest broadside against NATO, the military alliance that has long served as a pillar of Western unity, has further aggravated the disunity in the Republican Party as he prepares to accept its nomination for president.

In an interview with The New York Times, Trump said the United States shouldn't automatically come to the defense of fellow NATO members if they are attacked unless those countries have paid their bills to the alliance. That approach flies in the face of one of NATO's bedrock principles, Article 5, which requires NATO states to come to the aid of a fellow member under assault.

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The comments drew scorn not only from American allies but also from several top Republicans, undermining the party's efforts to project unity during its national convention this week in Cleveland. They were published less than a day before Trump is due to deliver a major speech at the convention, and they further fueled the perception that Trump is a lackey for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"I disagree with that," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who was in Cleveland, said of Trump's comments. "NATO is the most important military alliance in world history. I want to reassure our NATO allies that if any of them get attacked, we'll be there to defend them."

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, speaking during a POLITICO panel event at the convention, said Trump's remarks made it harder for him to vote for the real estate mogul come November.

"You have allies right now, I mean I have friends that, you know, serve in parliament in places like Estonia, that every day worry about the Russians deciding that this is the time to re-annex and take them back, said Kinzinger, a former Air Force pilot. And comments like this are not only ill-informed, theyre dangerous.

Trump has long offered a radically different view of U.S. engagement with the world than many in his own party hold one that is defined primarily in economic terms and which does not hold treaties sacrosanct.

In the Times interview, Trump also said he would not chide authoritarian leaders for cracking down on civil liberties or their political rivals; that he'd pull the U.S. out of the North American Free Trade Agreement if Canada and Mexico didn't agree to better terms; and that he might withdraw U.S. troops deployed around the world, even from sensitive areas such as the Korean peninsula.

But the Manhattan billionaire's comments on NATO were unusually striking. Trump, who has often questioned whether other NATO states are carrying their share of the financial and military burdens that come with the alliance, said that if he became president the U.S. would come to the assistance of a member state under attack only if it has fulfilled their obligations to us.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, established in 1949, has 28 members. The first time NATO invoked Article 5 was after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, and America's NATO allies have since helped fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Many NATO members also are involved in the U.S.-led coalition battling the Islamic State terrorist network, and a number of their representatives were in Washington on Thursday for a meeting of the coalition, making the timing of Trump's comments all the more sensitive.

The international blowback was swift.

"Solidarity among allies is a key value for NATO," the military alliance's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said in a statement as word spread of Trump's remarks. "We defend one another. ... Two world wars have shown that peace in Europe is also important for the security of the United States."

Trump's comments were especially unnerving to smaller NATO countries, such as the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, who in recent years have begun to fear Russia's military aims. (Trump was specifically asked about the threat to the Baltic states in the Times interview.)

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 all our NATO allies, regardless of who they may be. That's what makes them allies."

Latvia's foreign minister, Edgars Rinkevics, meanwhile, stressed to POLITICO in a phone interview that his country has aided the U.S. in Afghanistan and has been steadily increasing its defense spending to align with its NATO commitments.

"I am a politician myself and I always make a distinction when it comes to a campaign and when it comes to the trappings of the office," Rinkevics said while declining to comment directly on Trump. He added, however, "We take those commitments that have been made by the U.S. government seriously."

Trump aides on Thursday tried to contain the fallout from his remarks. His campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, insisted that Trump simply wants NATO to adjust to new security realities, where threats are often from nonstate actors.

"What Mr. Trump has said consistently is that he thinks NATO needs to be modernized and brought into the world of the 21st century where terrorism and [the Islamic State], which didn't exist when NATO was created, are taken into account in the way they deal with things," he said.

Trump is hardly alone in his concern that some NATO members do not devote enough resources to the alliance and that the U.S. carries more than its share of the burden. Even President Barack Obama has gently reproached some NATO states for not living up to their commitment of devoting 2 percent of their GDP to defense, saying in a speech in April that "sometimes Europe has been complacent" about its security.

Trump adviser Sam Clovis told POLITICO that the candidate was in effect putting NATO members on notice "We're putting a marker out there." He added, however, that the Trump's comments were about the exploring the opportunity to "reinvest in NATO" and not a "hostile confrontation."

Still, Article 5 is not meant to apply only to members who have paid all their dues. And even if Trump were to never actually follow through on his pay-for-protection philosophy, the simple fact that he would hint at it publicly, observers said, could rattle allies and fray diplomatic relations.

"I dont think hes given any serious thought to the substance of the issue," said Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO. "Its one thing to complain that theyre not doing enough and they need to pull their share, which they do. But another is to question the U.S. commitment. The reason thats so important is certainty how we would behave and others behave is what provides stability. Its what provides deterrent. Its what guarantees that well never have to fight."

Trump's NATO comments were a gift to Democrats seeking to portray him as a threat to the world order.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign put out a statement invoking Republican darling Ronald Reagan to blast Trump the latest sign of how the Democrat is trying to take advantage of the divisions Trump has sowed within the GOP.

"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.

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, a potential vice presidential pick for Clinton, said he was "stunned" to learn of Trump's comments. "Is the new rule that your word isn't your bond?" he asked at an immigration-related event in his home state.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest, meanwhile, tried to reassure America's partners. "There should be no mistake or miscalculation made about this countrys commitment to our trans-Atlantic alliance," he said.

A number of Trump's critics said Trump's statements appear to be exactly what 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 complimentary toward Putin; he told the Times that he and Putin "will get along very well." The Republican's team was reported 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.

"Im 100 percent certain how Russian President Putin feels hes a very happy man," Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a prominent Republican critic of Trump, said of the GOP nominee's remarks.

Trump's vice presidential pick, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, also sought to defend him Thursday as word spread of his NATO remarks.

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 & Friends." "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. Sullivan's statement noted that Pence also had spoken of the importance of America's allies in his speech at the convention on Wednesday.

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

Seung-min Kim, Ryan Heath, Benjamin Oreskes, Giulia Paravicini, Michael Schwab, Louis Nelson, Burgess Everett, Daniel Ducassi and Bianca Padro Ocasio contributed to this report.

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Republicans rip Trump over NATO plan - POLITICO