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.”
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.
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.