by digby
This was what Trump believed was the problem. From 1987:
”There’s nothing wrong with America’s Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone can’t cure.”
”For decades, Japan and other nations have been taking advantage of the United States” and that it has been costing this nation in terms of the economy, deficit and taxes, the ad said. ”The saga continues unabated as we defend the Persian Gulf.”
Trump described the Gulf as ”an area of only marginal significance to the United States for its oil supplies, but one upon which Japan and others are almost totally dependent.”
”Why are these nations not paying the United States for the human lives and billions of dollars we are losing to protect their interests? … The world is laughing at America’s politicians as we protect ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need, destined for allies who won’t help.”
He has literally not evolved in his thinking on this for more than three decades. He’s been making the same trivial argument since he was a young man, complaining about the US being “laughed at” for paying money to ensure the world doesn’t blow up as if that’s more important than the fact that we haven’t had a major war in Europe for half a century — and no nuclear war ever. He never understood the point of any of it.
*I’m not saying that nothing should ever change about NATO. But Trump’s argument of decades is stupid, myopic and irrelevant. It was stupid in 1987 and it’s stupid now.
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