No aid and no weapons from the United States to Ukraine, for the war with Russia, if Europe does not do more. It’s the threat, not even veiled, that Donald Trump delivered 6 months before the 2024 US presidential elections. If he were to return to the White House as president, Trump would not hesitate to change Washington’s position.
“I said I won’t give anything” to Ukraine “unless Europe starts doing the same, they have to step up, Europe has to pay,” Trump says in a long interview with Time, in which he exposes elements of the its program with ample space for foreign policy. “We have given so much more than the European nations. And this is very unfair to us. E if Europe doesn’t pay why should we?“, he adds.
Criticism of Biden: “I get along with Putin”
The questions about the war are an assist to criticize Joe Biden. “I think Biden interacted very badly with Putin. Putin should never have gone to Ukraine and in the 4 years I was there he didn’t go. I get along very well with Putin“, says Trump, convinced that Moscow should free Evan Gerskovich, the Wall Street Journal journalist arrested over a year ago for espionage. “The reporter should be freed and will be freed. I don’t know if he will be released under Biden. I will get him released, he will be released. Putin will free him,” he says.
Relations with NATO: “We were the only ones paying”
The interview also focuses extensively on relations with the rest of NATO. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to Europe, I love Europe, the people of Europe, I have a great relationship with Europe. But they take advantage of us both for NATO and for Ukraine. We have paid many more billions of them to Ukraine. It should be like this, it should be the opposite,” he says.
The Europeans should bear the brunt of aid to Kiev because “they are much more involved, we have an ocean in our midst. They don’t. And when I said things like this, I did a good thing because billions of dollars have recently arrived”, he says, referring to the highly criticized statements he made in recent months regarding the fact that, once back in the White House, he would not lift a finger to protect NATO countries that are not in order with military spending from a possible aggression by Russia.
Statements that he confirms point by point in the interview: “What I said, I said with great intention, because I want them to pay. I said it to put pressure, ‘look, if you don’t pay, you’ll deal with it on your own “, He says. Trump claims the results obtained as president with his aggressive attitude towards NATO: threatening “to leave the Alliance” helped, he says, because “billions of dollars arrived, as if by magic”.
“Obama never said anything like that. He went, gave a speech and left. Bush went, spoke and left. I went, looked at the numbers and said: wait a minute, the U.S. they pay for NATO. We are paying for almost 100% of NATO. I want them to pay their bills, that’s all,” he reiterates.
Trump and the ban on US weapons for Ukraine: “If Europe doesn’t pay…”
“The problem I have with NATO… I don’t think that NATO would come to defend us if we had a problem”, he says, forgetting that article 5, which is activated to request the intervention of the members of the Alliance, was used only after the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. “I know them all. It’s a one-way street. I want them to pay, but I believe that if we were attacked, NATO wouldn’t be there. Many NATO countries wouldn’t be there” .
The direct question: will he continue to provide military aid to Ukraine? “I will try to help Ukraine, but Europe must do its part. She’s not doing it. Europe is not paying what it has to.”
Migrants, the promise: mass deportations
On the domestic front, the former president hits the immigration button and promises that, upon returning to the White House, he will deport millions of migrants, to react to the “15, perhaps 20 million, by the time Biden’s mandate ends, mostly arriving from prisons, psychiatric hospitals”. The Donald will not hesitate to use the armed forces for his mass deportation plan.
“We have to have security in our country, use whatever it takes, but I believe the National Guard will be able to do this job,” he said, but stated that if it is not enough “I will use the military.” And to the interviewer who reminds him of the law, the Posse Comitatus Act, which prevents the deployment of US soldiers against civilians, he replies: “These are not civilians – referring to migrants – they are people who are not legally in our country. This is an invasion on a scale probably never experienced by any other country”.