Former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took a moment to issue a dire prediction during comments made at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
During her remarks at the conference, she stressed how serious the threat of a Trump victory in 2024 was to the United States and its relations with its allies.
“We have a long struggle ahead of us, and the obvious point to make about Donald Trump is take him literally and seriously,” she said. “He means what he says. People did not take him literally and seriously in 2016. Now he is telling us what he intends to do, and people who try to wish it away, brush it away, are living in an alternative reality.” (via Fox News)
Clinton continued by emphasizing how Trump’s threats make him authoritarian because he is willing to reject the will of Congress and potentially pull out of NATO.
“He will do everything he can to become an absolute authoritarian leader if given the opportunity to do so. And he will pull us out of NATO even though the Congress passed a resolution saying that he couldn’t without congressional support, because he will just not fund our obligations,” she said. (via Fox News)
Former President Donald Trump has been an outspoken critic of NATO. He frequently attacks the alliance on the campaign trail, and The New York Times reported he previously mulled over withdrawing from NATO with his aides in private.
Last week, Bloomberg reported that Trump threatened to encourage the attack of NATO allies by their enemies if they don’t properly pay.
In a proposed hypothetical where a NATO ally was delinquent with payments and they were attacked, Trump said “No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.” (via Bloomberg Television)
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg claimed that this comment from Trump undermined the security agreement.
“The whole idea of NATO is that an attack on one ally will trigger a response from the whole alliance and as long as we stand behind that message together, we prevent any military attack on any ally. Any suggestion that we are not standing up for each other, that we are not going to protect each other, that does undermine the security of all of us,” Stoltenberg said. (via Fox News)
NATO or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a strategic military alliance of 31 member countries, including the United States, Canada, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. The agreement between these countries says that if one country is attacked then every other country in the alliance is supposed to respond together.
Trump has attacked some NATO members for refusing to meet defense spending requirements. Since 2006, NATO members have been required to contribute at least 2% of their GDP towards defense spending to ensure the alliance is strong enough to resist attacks on member nations. (via NATO)
CNN reported recently that this year a record 18 NATO countries are expected to meet the spending threshold this year. While this number may seem low, in 2014 only three of the 31 NATO countries were meeting this goal, making it a huge improvement.
