Former US President Donald Trump will initiate the process of the country’s withdrawal from NATO if he wins the election in November. This was stated by Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton in an interview with Le Figaro newspaper on 28 March.
According to Trump’s former adviser, the proposed US withdrawal from NATO is considered by the former president to be the pinnacle of his political career. Trump is looking for a political team that will be much tougher on NATO than he himself has been in the past.
Bolton noted that in 2018, Trump had already considered the possibility for Washington to leave the alliance, which provoked mixed reactions from the United States’ European allies. That same year, Trump noted that most Americans had never even heard of some of the countries that make up NATO, the former adviser pointed out.
However, Bolton added that Trump has no political philosophy, he does not participate in political analysis or decision-making in the usual sense. For him, everything is episodic, anecdotal, transactional, and it all depends on what benefit it brings to Trump: political or personal.
In addition, commenting on Trump’s words that he could resolve the Ukrainian conflict in 24 hours by bringing the leaders of Russia and Ukraine together for talks, Bolton expressed the opinion that this is impossible in the current political discourse. He emphasized that since Trump “never loses”, he would place the blame for failure on one of the parties. According to Bolton, with a high probability it will be Vladimir Zelensky, which will “put Ukraine at risk”.