Then president told European commissioners in 2020 that ‘Nato is dead’ and the US would never defend Europe if it were attacked

Donald Trump told the president of the European Commission in 2020 that the US would “never come help” if Europe was attacked and also said “Nato is dead”, a senior European commissioner said.

Multiple news outlets said the exchange between Trump and Ursula von der Leyen at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020 was described in Brussels on Tuesday by Thierry Breton, a French European commissioner responsible for the internal market, with responsibilities including defence.

“You need to understand that if Europe is under attack we will never come to help you and to support you,” Trump said, according to Breton, who was speaking at the European parliament.

According to Breton, Trump also said: “By the way, Nato is dead, and we will leave, we will quit Nato.”

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  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
    68·
    5 months ago

    The US is the backbone of NATO and Ukraine + Palestine/Iran/Yemen + China + whatever is popping off in Ecuador and Venezuela right now is definitely showing the limits of American military intervention.

    The multitude of NATO members still functionally exist, but they aren’t in any real position to support or defend one another. Just look at the current protests in Poland against Ukrainian trucks coming into the country. Or the way Turkey (NATO’s second largest military behind the US) seems content to play both ends against the middle. The UK, at this point, is an absolute joke. I guess they’ve always got France.

    Hell, look at how US insistence in backing Israel’s genocide in Gaza is dissolving decades of diplomacy between the various Middle Eastern states. The cornerstone of the Mediterranean is collapsing into civil war at a moment when Europeans would really prefer a big chunk of the American Navy wasn’t diverted south of the Suez.

    Its a fair cry from dead, but this is the worst NATO has looked in my own living memory.

    • EchEnglish
      6·
      5 months ago

      Well, I wasn’t talking about the veracity of the statement. Just stating trump is too dumb to know what nato is, other than what he can gather that it does for him personally (which is nothing, hence why “it’s dead” to him). That said, the comment was also made nearly 4 years ago now, so I doubt he had all that in mind when he made the claim.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
        46·
        5 months ago

        trump is too dumb to know what nato is

        He loves to exaggerate for attention and he knows the NATO coalition has been struggling for the last decade. Telling the individual members that they all need to fend for themselves (by purchasing into American-made weapons industries) because the organization is “dead” is more about being used-car-salesmen shady than foreign-policy-stupid.

        That said, the comment was also made nearly 4 years ago now, so I doubt he had all that in mind when he made the claim.

        There’s a running joke - one that Obama alluded to as he was leaving office when he demanded a gold watch from Boeing for eight years of service - about how the primary role of the Presidency is to just selling America’s shit abroad. “NATO is dead, now y’all have to pony up for our military surplus” is just Trump’s version of this.