NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Joanne says he believes former President Donald Trump’s statements that he will not support a NATO nation that does not spend 2% of its GDP on defense if attacked are “probably campaign ” because “it is in America’s best interest, above all, to keep our allies close,” but Trump is right when he says that it is not normal for the US to defend states that in turn do not do so. , allocated for defense, reports News.ro.

As for Donald Trump’s statement that he would let the Russians do whatever they want with countries that don’t spend at least two percent on defense, a NATO official thinks Trump is right when he says it’s not normal for the U.S. to defend countries that they do it not to allocate, in turn, to defense, in the context of which America spends 3.5% of GDP, a large GDP, on defense.

• “Where there is some truth, maybe Trump said it more forcefully and radically, that it is not normal for America to fully pay for the security of Europeans. Under this form of pressure, stronger negotiations, several allies began to spend about 2%. I think Europe is also starting to wake up to a new reality,” Joanne said.

• “I think, further, that these statements are probably also with pre-election intentions. (…) I think it is in America’s interest, first of all, to keep its allies close, and such statements do not mean that America’s leadership role is being undermined around the world. Obviously, this is a harsh statement, but having worked with President Trump in the past and knowing that there is a difference between a campaign and a possible position in the White House, let’s still keep faith in what our Alliance represents,” the NATO representative said.

Joana reported that NATO is conducting an analysis of the percentage of GDP allocated by the member states of the Alliance.

Joanne also notes that recent political events in Russia indicate that the Russian Federation will be an unpredictable and aggressive state in the coming years, and in this context, the strengthening of NATO forces is important.

• “We don’t see an immediate risk to our security, but we see an increasingly unpredictable Russia, we see a Russia that seems to have come out of the logic of minimal cooperation with the West, and the recent interview that an American journalist did with President Putin actually shows that that in strategic communication, including for the pseudo-election campaign in Russia, Russia, a fortress besieged by the evil and destructive West, in quotation marks has become state policy. So we are waiting for many years because this regime seems to perpetuate itself, an aggressive Russia, an unpredictable Russia, and the best solution is to prepare for the negative scenario. Because preparing for a negative scenario means that this scenario will not happen. The stronger you are, Russia and Putin understand this, they understand the language of strength, NATO is strong, the risks are much smaller. But it cannot be said that we will have calm years in relations with Russia, it remains an unpredictable and potentially dangerous country. This is the reality and we must calmly tell the citizens about it,” Mircea Joane said on Digi 24 on Monday night.

Donald Trump, the most likely Republican candidate to challenge Joe Biden in November’s US presidential election, threatened on Saturday that if re-elected he would no longer defend NATO countries that do not allocate a large enough share of their defense budgets. , even going so far as to encourage Russia to attack them.

Read also:

• Which NATO countries do not allocate 2% of their GDP to defense, and which keep their commitments?
• “We need to send a clear message”: how Donald Trump’s comments on the defense of “poorly paid” NATO countries were received in Europe