Trump should have said something like the following:
There should be a Nato agreement that each country contributes at least 2% of GDP to the mutual defense. Those countries falling short in their defense spending must contribute the difference to a fund to assist those countries spending more than 2% of GDP.
That would have been a responsible approach to Nato reform, unlike his actual comments, which served to weaken the alliance.
But Trump doesn’t wish to save Nato, he’d rather see it destroyed. Trump doesn’t respect Putin despite his flaws; he respects him precisely because of his flaws. Trump respects power—the power to kill your political opponents and invade neighboring countries. He feels so passionately about this that he refuses to forcefully condemn Putin’s crimes despite the fact that it costs him votes. In contrast, Trump despises leaders that seek to cooperate with other countries, or those who advocate human rights, viewing them as weak.
People wonder why Trump keeps saying these awful things about Russia and Ukraine (and occasionally China). Even Trump’s critics cannot quite wrap their minds around the fact that he says them because he believes them. Trump really does believe that Putin should be able to kill his opponents and invade neighboring countries. He really does wish to see Nato destroyed. Ditto for the EU. These are not just slips of the tongue. We are not used to having candidates who are 100% pure evil, so we cannot see the truth when it’s right in front of our eyes.
In 2016, I pointed out that Trump had authoritarian tendencies, and commenters mocked me for it. After January 6th, those commenters look like complete fools, and the current iteration of Trump is far worse than the 2016 version. If anything, I greatly understated how bad Trump is.
Inevitably, commenters will tell me that the first Trump administration was staffed with some mainstream GOP officials who occasionally put sanctions on Russia. But listen to what Trump is saying now. He’s saying that in his second term he will not use any of those mainstream “RINOs”, and instead will staff his administration with authoritarian right-wing nationalists.
Maybe he’ll be too lazy to pursue that agenda. But if he does, don’t say that we weren’t warned.
PS. Can someone explain to me why Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea have not already been added to Nato? It seems like a no-brainer that would clearly make Nato even stronger. What are we waiting for?